Hannah and I recently attended the We Are Africa trade show in Cape Town, representing our properties and DMC in Tanzania. Rooms were filled with other industry professionals, selling and buying ‘luxury travel’ across Africa. A great place to connect with other operators as well as other buyers.
Since the days where exploration fuelled Dad’s overlanding journeys across Europe, Africa and Asia to our original mobile safari set up in 1984, the standards of ‘luxury travel’ have changed drastically. But that history built our ethos of exclusive, raw experiences that make people connect with where they are travelling.
At We Are Africa there is and has been a noticeable shift away from experiential luxury to fabricated and comfort luxury.Everyone focusing on the physical amenities of high quality rather than the service and experiential aspect of high quality. To us luxury is intimacy, attention to detail, and simplicity.
What each person determines as luxurious is of course subjective and to some people having a plunge pool on your deck is more important than your waiter remembering your name and drink order each evening. However, our opinion is you can’t have one without the other. For us what makes a property or a journey special isn’t simply the amenities, but it is the people, the places, and the small details that reflect in an experience. I always use the analogy that you could be eating in the fanciest restaurant in the world but if your waiter is rude your overall experience won’t be good.
Explorer Travel Co wasn’t built in pursuit of ‘luxury travel.’ It is a company built from the passion of sharing high-quality adventures and wildlife encounters with others. The ‘luxury’ element evolved later. We first focused on the feelings a place can evoke and allowed the rest to follow. This has been our standpoint in Tanzania for 42 years and is the ethos we carry into our wider global travels.
I am writing from my room at Osunyai Lamarkau, looking out over uninterrupted views across green grass towards mountains in the distance. There is nothing but the sound of birds, wind rustling the trees, and bees humming as they move their hives. In all of it our camp stands alone, immersed in the nature that surrounds it. To us that is luxury and why we call exclusivity the last true luxury.
