About Zara

Zara, one of the top three operators in Northern Tanzania, was opened in 1986 as an international travel agency and in 1987 was appointed as an IATA agency. Safari trips to Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru climbs commenced in 1987.

Many years of experience in running these trips have now been accumulated and in some years Zara has been the top provider. Zara is mentioned in many publications eg "Kilimanjaro & Mount Kenya" by Cameron M Burns, also on several websites that also provide references to Zara services (eg AAE).

We now have a fleet of about 40 vehicles and over 50 guides are on our books. 28 mountain guides are registered to Zara. All of our drivers and guides are experienced and speak English.
 
Zara Accommodation
ZARA now own four properties:

• Springlands Hotel is a base for all safaris and mountain treks located near Kilimanjaro International Airport and with daily shuttle bus connections with Nairobi.
• Highview Hotel lies just beside the Ngorongoro Conservation area - a perfect base for visiting the Crater or for trekking in the Crater Highlands. It is also a convenient overnight stop for those travelling to or from the Serengeti.
• Serengeti Wild Camp is a fly-camp ofering a real tented bush camp experience in the heart of the Serengeti - an ideal game viewing location.
• Ikoma Wild Camp: The cottages here offer comfortable accommodation in a quiet gameland area just outside of the Serengeti. Good walking and game drives available.

Your booking will be handled by our internet booking office run by EWP in the UK. EWP not only run Zara internet bookings but also are actively involved with program development with Zara. The EWP team of Tanzanian experts are available to advise and help you design or choose your program.

Zara and EWP Privacy Policy:
Any information you send is transferred to us on a secure server ensuring no third party is able to read it. We in turn only use the information you send: to process your credit card payment or to send you our products, information packages or vouchers, tickets. We may, unless otherwise requested, send you newsletters by email or post - at most two or three times a year. Your information or data is never passed on to any other party by us.

Eco Tourism
Zara has an Ecotourism policy. We ask our clients to respect local environments and promote local projects, products and producers. In particular:

• Assist local economies by purchasing local products instead of exotic ones and to avoid those made from endangered indigenous wood such as ebony or bamba kofi.
• Avoid purchasing pieces of coral, large shells or turtle shells which encourage the destruction of the coral reef and ocean fauna.
• Not to remove any natural objects such as flora or sea shells.
• Not to harass wildlife or marine life.
• Not to leave litter. Please take all litter back from the mountains or safaris unless responsibly disposed of by your trip guides.
• Water is precious - please use it sparingly.
• Respect the customs of the local population. In towns, particular at the coast or on Zanzibar women are requested to cover their shoulders and wear knee length skirts or trousers and not to go topless on the beaches where there are local people. In towns men should not go shirtless. Please ask before taking photos of people or private houses. Alcohol is freely available but drunken behaviour is offensive.
• Not to give presents of money to children nor to accept services from unlicensed people.

Where possible we try to help local communities and involve them in our programs and camps. For this reason porters and guides are recruited from the locality of the trip being arranged. At Ikoma camp we contribute to the local Maasai community and this also applies to several other campsites that we use in Maasai country. We are actively involved in conservation and development issues in Kilimanjaro National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. We support and promote our porters and guides through their association ensuring they are not exploited and that they are fairly paid. We promote any organisation that benefits their local community, for example we try to use accommodation such as is provided by the St Eugene Sisters in Usambara.