Global Change and Sustainable Mountain Tourism: The Case of Mount Kenya - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 193

Plate 8.1 Mt. Kenya showing remaining Glaciers.
Color image of this figure appears in the color plate section at the end of the topic.
and cultural tourists from near and far-off. Features that attract tourists
are the pure, original nature, natural monuments and the healthy climate.
Mt. Kenya like other mountains of the world has many tourist attractions
such as mountaineering, hiking and trekking, sport fi shing, cave tourism,
religious tourism, adventure tourism and ferratta (metal way), These
attractions can form the base for development of adventure tourism,
ecotourism and alpine tourism (Makunyi 2010, Mburu 2011). To establish
the potential of mountain tourism on Mt. Kenya, a SWOT analysis was
carried out. Its results are summarized in Table 8.1.
Strengths
The snow-clad summits of Mt. Kenya lying on the Equator offer
opportunities for outdoor adventure tours. Mount Kenya is a world class
destination for mountaineers. It attracts many mountain climbers from
all over the world every year (Makunyi 2010). Mountaineering is the
mountain's fl agship activity which motivates camping, hiking and trekking.
Camps are used as bases for mountain climbing (Fig. 8.2). The picturesque