Hi Austinrunner,

Thanks.

As I have mentioned on this forum, I have never been to East Africa on safari. I made one trip to Kenya when I was 5 years old to visit family friends. On the contrary, I have been to Southern Africa on safari 30 times and spent all of last month in Zambia. I highly doubt the types of safaris most US operators (including my company) sell can be bought from local operators for less money unless they are selling at net costs which would not be sustainable or good business. Specifically, I know this is not possible with Singita, MalaMala, Lion Sands, Tswalu, Mashatu, Great Plains, all Wilderness Safari lodges (50+) and many other lodges. There are a few long standing US operators that try to sell safaris at 50-60% mark-ups (yes!) but they are few and far between. Maybe you had a bad experience with one of them? Again, for luxury safaris, we all (including local operators) purchase the lodge space at a net price but there are no lower prices in the local market (for luxury lodges). From there, companies can mark-up however they want and sell at whatever price the market will bear. Some mark-up more than others.

If you are talking about budget safari lodges then I agree with you. Many budget safari lodges do have flexible pricing, last minute auctions, and vastly different pricing for different distribution channels including a channel that includes local operators. Luxury safari lodges get the vast majority of their business from overseas operators and most would not jeopardize this relationship by undercutting them through the local channels.

I am not the expert on East Africa but you have been on many safaris there. I don’t want to spend the time researching and listing lodges that are closed in East Africa in April and May because I don’t have this knowledge on the tip of my tongue and not all of them are closed. I think at this point, you should simply share some specific companies (just a few) that the readers on this forum could contact to book a quality safari in East Africa. I am not on this forum to make money so it is no skin off my back. I am simply a safari enthusiast like you so I would love to hear about your experiences.

Now, if you are talking about privately guided safaris then there are huge differences in the service levels as well. A guide with poor command of the English language and no resources to call upon If his 10+ year old vehicle breaks down is going to be vastly different from a guide speaking perfect English with a fleet of late model vehicles at his disposal. There really is no way to make an apples-to-apples comparison between privately guided safaris in East Africa because an individual guide cannot be commoditized and it is the guide that makes or breaks the trip.

Thanks for engaging on this topic but, like I said yesterday, as long as you are unwilling to go into specifics (naming camps and local operators) it is very hard to have a civil debate with you on the merits of your experience vs. the very specific plans I suggested for the OP.

Craig Beal – owner – Travel Beyond