Tour operators in Nairobi now claim to have found a new gap in the Tourism sector and are set to introduce slum tourism, an unusual kind of tourism that has sparked hot debates about some tour operators’ ethics.
Some argue that it is another essential source of income for the poverty-stricken households of the slum areas while others say is an exploitative and voyeuristic initiative.
While Kibera residents do tolerate the frequent visits by foreign tourists who pay around $15 per trip, a section of the slum residents argue that they are being treated just like animals in a zoo.
During the high season which runs from early July to late September, tourists throng Nairobi’s Kibera slums before setting out on their actual Safaris to animal parks.
Forty-year-old Mary Atieno, a fishmonger in Kibera, says that the lack of basic services, as well as high levels of poverty, could be what is attracting the tourists who apparently come from the well-off families abroad.
“Probably this (Poverty) is what makes them visit us. We do not have lions, no wild animals. They come here to witness how human beings can live in such poor conditions. This makes me really angry," she says.