Hotels ordered to stop selling curios

A curio trader at the Village Market where a Maasai market is held every Friday. Hotels and lodges in the Maasai Mara game reserve have been banned from selling beadwork products to tourists.Photo/Phoebe Okall

What you need to know:

  • Mr Tunai said the decision to stop hotels from selling the products was intended to empower women and improve their sustainable development and alleviate poverty.
  • Mr Tunai, who was addressing a group of women at Sikinani Gate, also announced that the county would build a multi-million-shilling beads and carvings market where women traders would sell their products.

Hotels and lodges in the Maasai Mara game reserve have been banned from selling beadwork products to tourists.

The business should be left solely to women traders at the entrance of the park, the Narok County government said Tuesday.

Governor Samuel Tunai gave the hotels up to July 1, when the order takes effect.

Mr Tunai said the decision to stop hotels from selling the products was intended to empower women and improve their sustainable development and alleviate poverty.

Mr Tunai, who was addressing a group of women at Sikinani Gate, also announced that the county would build a multi-million-shilling beads and carvings market where women traders would sell their products.

“We will put in law that no hotel and lodge should be allowed to sell the products to the tourists. Our women need to sustain themselves and this is the only way they can,” said the governor. He urged the hotels and lodges to employ residents.

Narok County Women’s Representative Roselynda Soipan Kudate urged women to embrace banking through which they can save and access loans to start businesses.