This entry “Why does a safari cost so much?” first appeared in a Dispatch, the updates sent to all Society members. You can join for free here.

---

Imagine for a minute: You have built a new house in the country. You’d like to invite people to come and see it to attend a big welcome party. The area is beautiful, and you’ve been building it for years. But, with some recent flooding in the area, that means it’s about a three-day drive. Thankfully, there is an airstrip nearby. You also know a pilot that can fly your friends in, provided you cover their costs.

There isn’t a supermarket nearby, so you will have to fly the food in too. They also need to fly in some drinks, because what is a welcome party without a selection of drinks? Since the flooding, you also need to fly in some supplies and some people to help with the party, some catering staff and a DJ, and some people to help fix some remaining issues with your new build. You have also hired these people from the larger community. They aren’t as experienced at party throwing as people from the city, but it makes sense to hire locals for a local welcome party.

The plants and trees nearby have also been dying out, so you have had to install irrigation to support this. There aren’t any sewage or power or water lines out this far in the country, so you have to also create systems for all of this as well. But, you want your guests to have a great time!

The local council also has some fees. Not only do you have your rates, but they charge fees for parties, irrigation systems, and the like.

Also, strangely enough, whenever you leave the place unattended, or even when you sleep, someone comes along and steals the two front pillars of your verandah. When they do this, the whole thing falls down. They are lovely where they are, and utterly useless to anyone else except you. But, someone told someone else overseas that they’d help cure cancer, and they’ve hired some struggling locals to take them. So, you have to constantly be on the lookout to make sure that no one steals them. To help with this, you’ve hired some security to keep a patrol out.

And so, the big day arrives. Your guests fly in, and they have an absolutely incredible time. It’s the best party they’ve ever been to. They rave about the house, about the party staff, about the food and drinks you’ve flown in, and about the front pillars of your house. They love it.

But yet, back in the city, people turn their noses up. “Why would I go to that party?” they say, “When I can go to McDonalds instead? It’s cheaper and I get a toy in a box.”

That may seem like a slightly absurd scenario, but that’s not too dissimilar from modern-day safari lodges and camps. They operate in remote areas, using local communities as much as possible for staffing, have to set up self-sustaining life systems such as water and power and have to pay fees for local governance.

Think for a minute of everything you use and touch in a day: soap, cutlery, bedding, vehicles, etc. All of these things need to be brought in. Additionally, all of the food has to come in and any non-recyclable waste has to go out. In areas where the nearby land can be farmed, produce is often secured from local communities here, although it’s cheaper to go mass market at the supermarket. In concessions or in natural reserves and parks, that isn’t even an option.

And, as Covid proved quite clearly, the costs for running and maintaining lodges in these areas don’t stop when the guests aren’t there. Lodges in the wild need constant maintenance and refurbishment, either for normal wear or for extreme cases, like when elephants decide it’s easier to dig up a water pipe rather than walk to a waterhole. The vehicles, subject to wild African areas, also need mechanics on site to maintain them and ensure they are always safe and running smoothly. In addition, the wild areas are only wild areas because they have been kept wild areas. This needs monitoring and constant supervision, otherwise opportunistic people come in and remove the ‘front two pillars’ from the face of a rhinoceros or elephant.

And yet, despite that, the costs of an African safari are comparatively quite low. As an example, for every $2000 a night property there is a $2,000 a week property. In other words, there is a range for everyone. A safari in Africa is also far more inclusive. You will see competitions for trips to Europe including $10,000 spending money, but that sort of money on safari in Africa is largely useless. “Take it home, everything here is already included.” Unlike the constant leak of money from your pockets in places like the Americas or Europe, your safari in Africa comes preloaded with your activities, meals and more. You aren’t ducking out down the shops, through hundreds of square kilometres of wild bush, for a chicken sandwich.

Tswalu, a lodge in the remote north of South Africa, recently released an impact statement that provided a peek behind the curtain as to the costs involved in running their lodge. Within that, you can see a breakdown of their expenses.

Within that breakdown, conservation costs amount to 34% of their totals. Operations of the lodge (including staffing) amount to another 49%. That’s 83% of their costs for just these two things alone. That doesn’t include the other costs, like marketing and sales commissions and more. Instead of asking “Why does Africa cost so much?”, we should be asking “Why doesn’t it cost more?”

So, of course a two-week safari is more expensive than two weeks at a three-star hotel in Bali. Of course it is. But, a sirloin steak at a restaurant is more expensive than lunch meat at the deli. Not to say either aren’t delicious, but they are very different dining experiences. The issue comes along when people try to incorporate the mass marketing mentality of the Bali experience into the reality of the African one. In the end, we simply have to differentiate between cost and value. Cost is what something is priced at, value is what something is worth. And, irrespective of the luxury level of the lodge, a good quality African safari is by far one of the best value experiences you can buy.