‘Fences have blocked wildlife corridors, causing the wildebeest migration to collapse from 140,000 individuals to fewer than 15,000’: Is the opening of the Ritz-Carlton in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve a cause for celebration or concern?
By Lisa Johnson
The new Ritz-Carlton, Masai Mara Safari Camp is soon opening up in Maasai Mara and very close to the Serengeti.
Conservators and observers are worrying that this new property sounds a death kernel to the legendary Serengeti wildebeest migration.
Ritz-Carlton, Masai Mara Safari Camp, is joining a collection of more than 120 ‘ultra-luxe yachts, curated retreats, branded residences and all-inclusive resorts’ that are in turn part of a US-based global conglomerate encompassing more than 9,300 properties across 30 brands.
Developed with Kenya’s Lazizi Group, the property in Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, will be raised on stilts beside the Sand River, offering a ‘front-row seat at the Great Migration’, steps from the Tanzanian border.
Ritz Carlton will ‘usher in a new era of luxury hospitality’ with 20 tented suites, each with its own infinity plunge pool, indoor and outdoor shower and private butler, as well as access to a spa, gym and swimming pool, wine cellar and Canon photographic studio, at rates starting from USD 3,500 per person per night.
But does the Maasai Mara need more luxury?
Aren’t smaller independent safari camps that are already part of the fabric of the area better adapted to navigating its particular challenges?
Is this about short-term gain or long-term sustainability? Should there even be a new camp here in the first place?
These are timely questions because the Ritz-Carlton is not the only big-brand hotel to be muscling in on the Kenya safari scene.
It follows the 20-suite JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge (which opened on Maasai community land outside the reserve in 2023) and the Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara, a 12-suite camp on a private conservancy that launched in 2013, one year after the colossal 77-room Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti over the border in Tanzania.
Another new JW Marriott, the Mount Kenya Rhino Reserve Safari Camp — a 20-tent ‘sanctuary’ scheduled to open in 2026 on Solio, a 19,000-acre privately owned rhino conservancy in Northern Kenya where previously there was only one five-cottage lodge — suggest there will be more to come, and not just in the Masai Mara.
Tourism in Kenya can undoubtedly be a force for good.
In 2024, says the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, it accounted for 10 percent of GDP and 1.6 million jobs.
Four years after the onset of Covid-19, it experienced a period of ‘remarkable growth’, recording 2,394,376 international tourist arrivals, up 14.6 percent from 2023, and domestic bed occupancy numbers of 4,618,094, an increase of 12 percent.
These jobs support families and wider communities, while park and conservation fees protect wildlife and community contributions and donations help to build livelihoods, schools and clinics, further incentivising local communities to protect landscapes and animals instead of engaging in activities — wheat-farming, overgrazing, fencing, charcoal burning or poaching — that harm them.
So isn’t the arrival of these big new players a cause for celebration, further raising the profile of Kenya’s wildlife areas, opening up the safari experience to travellers who might not otherwise have considered it?
It’s a delicate balance. While high-value is a good thing in ecologically sensitive areas, high-volume is not. Too many roads, beds and vehicles can be disastrous, degrading landscapes, destroying habitats and disrupting millennia-long migratory patterns.
And if any area could be described as ecologically sensitive, it’s the Masai Mara — home, with the Serengeti, to the Great Migration, when more than 1.5 million wildebeest, along with hundreds of thousands of zebras and Thomson’s gazelles, drift north with the rains.
Hotel is threatening the Serengeti Migration
The ungulates then cascade through the Mara and other rivers with crocodiles, lions and other predators at their heels.
It’s a natural wonder of the world, an extraordinarily precious resource. As Squack Evans, a Zimbabwean-born guide with bespoke tour operator Journeys by Design says: ‘You’ve got to look after the golden goose. If you don’t, it’s eventually going to die.’
According to a March 2025 report by the Greater Serengeti Conservation Society the current level of tourism pressure on the Serengeti National Park and Maasai Mara National Reserve is unsustainable.
‘Mass tourism in the core area and immediate surrounding is already impairing the ecological integrity and values of the ecosystem,’ states the report, ‘particularly the wildebeest migration.’
The report’s principle recommendation for tourism is to place restrictions on the infrastructure, including the numbers of ‘available beds inside the core protected area’ and ‘vehicles simultaneously allowed in protected areas’.
One way to achieve this, suggests Evans, would be to limit developers to taking over existing camps and lodges that are struggling to make ends meet, make them stick to the same number or fewer beds, but raise their value.
‘It’s a pretty simple equation,’ he explains. ‘You fix a sustainable number of bed-nights in the core area, and then try to push up the value of each bed-night to the ecosystem as much as possible.’
At the moment, though, the townships that have sprung up with tourism on the reserve’s borders continue to sprawl and the number of camps continues to grow.
There are now at least 7,000 beds across 290 lodges and camps in the Greater Mara Ecosystem, and an estimated 1,000 vehicles per day in the Masai Mara National Reserve during the busy season.
‘It’s not uncommon to have so many vehicles around a cheetah that it will feel too intimidated to hunt,’ says Evans.
‘If it does manage to make a kill, it will have a multitude of vehicles rushing in on it at high speed, revving and making lots of noise. Nine out of ten times it’s going to get spooked.’
This over tourism is compounded by other pressures, not least the growing population surrounding the Greater Serengeti Mara Ecosystem which, says the report, ‘has doubled over the past 20 years, and is projected to double again in the next 20’.
Fences have blocked wildlife corridors, causing, for example, the wildebeest migration from the Loita Plains north of the Masai Mara to collapse from 140,000 individuals to fewer than 15,000.
Unauthorised night-time grazing inside the reserve has led to cattle being killed by lions, lions being poisoned, and vulture populations declining by more than 90 percent.
The management of the Greater Mara area is complex.
The 1,510m square kilometers Masai Mara National Reserve is governed by the Narok County Government east of the Mara River and the Mara Conservancy on behalf of the Trans-Mara County Council to the west.
Private conservancies are run by the Masai in partnership with various tourism companies; they contribute another 2,000 square kilometres of protected land.
All have a remit to protect wildlife and communities. Given the pressures on the Masai Mara National Reserve in particular, a moratorium on building was formalised in the current Management Plan for 2023-32, prescribing ‘no new tourism accommodation developments and no expansion of existing bed capacity permitted in all Maasai Mara National Reserve zones’.
So, should the new Ritz-Carlton be here?
“We recognise the sensitivity around the moratorium on new lodges and camps in the Masai Mara National Reserve, and we respect the importance of preserving this globally significant ecosystem,” says Helen Leighton, Marriott International’s vice president for luxury brands in the EMEA region.
‘The Ritz-Carlton’s presence in the reserve was approved prior to the moratorium and has been developed in close coordination with local authorities, regulatory bodies and conservation stakeholders.’
The other question is, will the camp be doing enough for conservation and communities — beyond its stated commitments to sustainable design and operation and supporting the local community, through partnerships with builders, artisans and guides, for instance?
One of the camp’s focuses is on ‘capacity-building’, says Leighton — ‘working with local conservationists, rangers and youth to help build guardianship of the land from within.’
Crucially, the camp is also currently in discussions with stakeholders around conservation financing, including potential revenue-sharing models to support wildlife protection and community initiatives. As the property grows, it aims to expand its impact, whether by supporting rewilding efforts, conservation research or education programmes that deepen understanding of this delicate ecosystem.’
Marriott won’t yet commit a percentage of revenue, but investing in new land for the benefit of both wildlife and people does seem to be central to the long-term future of the area.
‘Every tourism operation should be putting a percentage of their gross revenue into leasing land for new conservancies, above and beyond the conservation fees, thereby improving the lives of the landowner community, and giving value to wildlife so that biodiversity competes with all other land uses,’ believes Calvin Cottar, a Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association (KPSGA) Gold Guide, co-owner of Cottars Safaris, and a respected voice for conservation.
‘The key lies in opening up new areas on the edges of the Mara that have the potential to become thriving wildlife and livestock landscapes and bring revenue to communities who are currently not benefiting from tourism,’ says Lippa Wood, joint owner of House in the Wild.
The bottom line is that tourism in Kenya’s wildlife areas can’t just be a commercial transaction.
Wood says the arrival of global brands brings opportunity and responsibility, calling for greater care and collaboration in how we grow.
Or as Ken Kimani at Ol Pejeta puts it:
‘We welcome the growth and diversification of Kenya’s tourism sector, including the entry of major international hotel brands. It is a reflection of the country’s global appeal and potential for economic growth. However, it also demands a greater shared responsibility to ensure that development aligns with conservation priorities. The arrival of large hotel chains must be carefully managed within frameworks that safeguard Kenya’s unique natural heritage for future generations.’
Ultimately, wildlife conservation has to benefit the Kenyan people, or it will not win the groundswell of support it so desperately needs.
About the Author
Lisa is a writer and editor who specialises in travel, art and interiors. She has written for publications such as House & Garden and The Times — and also happens to be a translator (and can speak French, Spanish and German).