Editor, RE: "Lessons learnt from a year of travelling around the region” (The New Times, January 4).

This is an enlightened article. The conclusion is exactly right. Marketing an EAC is far more attractive to time-strapped tourists who want to fit in as much as possible in a limited time-frame. Pam Connell

**************************** This is a very nice article. I do have one remark though: I do travel to Kenya with tourists from Belgium to introduce them to the country that I love.

Few of them travel alone now, because they fell in love to the place, others come with me every year. Last November, I had someone with me who said, "I have traveled a lot and also to South Africa where I went into Kruger for a safari.

The safari in Kenya was much more genuine and a real experience. The roads are dusty, the beautiful red sand. Every turn in the road can bring you another surprise. In Kruger, the roads were too smooth to feel like safari”.

So the part where you say "infrastructure has to improve, for tourism to thrive, more efforts have to go into improving infrastructure, from international airports to domestic ones, to the roads that lead to the parks and inside the parks. Tourists need to enjoy a certain level of comfort whether they are local or international” isn’t true for everyone. Your conclusion is very right, but you forgot to mention one very important thing: Get away with all the plastic destroying every part of nature at the moment; ban plastic bags completely; follow the footsteps of Rwanda.

Rinique Koli