The phrase "responsible tourism" appears on most safari companies' websites. It is used so often, and with such varying degrees of commitment behind it, that it has nearly lost meaning. I want to try to give it back some precision — to describe what responsible safari tourism actually requires, in practice, and how you can assess whether an operator is genuinely committed to it or simply using the language because it tests well in marketing.

What the operator must do

Pay fair wages and hire locally

The most direct way a safari company contributes to local communities is through employment. Our guides, drivers, camp staff, logistics coordinators and office team are Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian. Fair wages — above the market rate where we can manage it — are the foundation. An operator who employs local people at fair rates creates long-term, stable economic value in the communities around the parks.

Work with community-owned conservancies

Many of the private conservancies surrounding the Masai Mara are community-owned — land leased from Maasai families at a rate that is more economically valuable than the same land would be under agriculture. When we route clients through these conservancies rather than only through the national reserve, the conservation leases remain commercially viable and the communities have a concrete reason to keep wildlife on their land.

Choose lodges with genuine environmental commitments

Solar power, water recycling, compost programmes, no single-use plastic, locally sourced food where possible — these are not aspirational features, they are operating choices that affect how much of a footprint each camp leaves. We audit our preferred lodge partners on these criteria. An operator who is indifferent to which lodges they send clients to is indifferent to the environmental consequence of the trips they sell.

What the traveller can do

Follow the rules — especially in the presence of animals

The rules that govern vehicle behaviour in national parks and gorilla trekking encounters are not bureaucratic inconveniences. They are the conditions under which animals allow human presence. Guides who leave the track, approach animals too closely, or allow guests to make noise near wildlife are not giving their clients a better experience — they are degrading the conditions that make the experience possible. Follow the rules. If your guide breaks them, say something.

Tip generously

Tipping is not a polite courtesy on safari — it is a meaningful economic contribution. A guide earning $15 per guest per day in tips doubles or triples their base income. Guides who earn well at this level stay in guiding and invest in their communities. The calibre of guiding in East Africa is partly a function of whether the industry pays well enough to retain its best people.

Spend locally

A drink at the local café in a gateway town, a craft purchased directly from the artisan who made it, a Maasai guide hired at the village rather than through a middleman — these small choices aggregate into meaningful local economic benefit.

What responsible tourism cannot be

It cannot be voluntary. Conservation that depends on individual goodwill without an underlying economic model is conservation in decline. The reason gorilla populations are increasing in Uganda and Rwanda is not primarily because individual tourists are ethical — it is because the economic model (permits → park revenue → anti-poaching → habitat protection → more gorillas) is sound. The same logic applies across East Africa. Responsible tourism works not because travellers are virtuous but because the incentive structure rewards protection over destruction.

We run a business. The business succeeds when wildlife thrives and when the communities around wildlife have economic reasons to protect it. These are not separate from our commercial interests. They are the same thing.

Questions about our specific conservation commitments and lodge partnerships are always welcome. Ask us →