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Team Kilimanjaro Climb Cost Increases for 2009

Team Kilimanjaro have always endeavoured to keep our climb costs accessible to all prospective climbers by ensuring near full-time employment for the majority of our staff, availability of year round climbs, and very low operating margins, despite at the same time offering what we believe to be some of the highest quality expedition services on Kilimanjaro available. It is therefore with regret that we have to announce some significant cost increases for 2009.

The primary causes of the increases have been the sharp rise in fuel costs and the loss in value of the US Dollar. These two factors have resulted in substantial increases in the costs of transfers and purchases of provisions - which in East Africa are closely linked to transportation costs. These factors have also contributed to an increase in the cost of living for our local staff and in response to this we have chosen to implement a wage increase of 20% on our 2008 wages for our guides and porters. This has been a difficult decision as it makes our prices less competitive, however our staff invest a great deal of trust in TK management and we anticipate that this move is an essential measure to ensure that our staff and their dependent families are able to maintain their current standard of living throughout 2009.

We understand that these increases may mean that some of those needing to maintain more stringent control of their budgets may be disappointed and feel they need to look elsewhere to book their proposed climb. To assist in such situations we have created a new booking system that allows solo individuals or small groups to publish their proposed dates on an open forum so as to attract others to their booking, thereby reducing their per person climb costs.