Guidelines for a sustainable safari
Guidelines for a Sustainable Safari: It is not always necessary to focus primarily on observing wildlife to have an amazing safari experience. To understand that things have drastically altered in this modern period, several tour operators have adopted a pattern where game drives are the main feature of the entire safari. These game drives help travellers see wildlife including the big five animals and bird species. Travelers differ in their tastes and preferences based on their experiences. As a result, rather than depending just on animals, we should consider how the safari impacts the industry’s social, economic, and environmental facets.
To make a positive impact, rather than just providing an answer to the question of what to see, when designing safari itineraries, consider all relevant factors, including promoting wildlife conservation, interacting with local communities, seeking out unusual activities, and minimizing environmental impact. To help ensure a sustainable safari, consider implementing the following rules into your trips:
Sustainable safari guidelines
Always avoid unethical interaction with animals
Tour companies should never encourage customers to engage in unethical animal interaction with these animals, especially on safaris where animals are involved, as these creatures are strictly wild regardless of whether they are kept in captivity or have access to food. Since the wild is these animals’ native environment, let us strive to avoid including them in our itinerary.
Always engage your supply chain
Including your supplier chain is crucial to the successful development of a sustainable safari. ensuring that sustainability is at the center of everything. This implies that eco-friendly ideas and methods must be used for travel, lodging, and activities. It is important for you as a sustainable travel operator to support comparable ideals in your supplier chain. This enables you to provide your traveller with a sustainable, timely product. Because they guarantee third-party checks, suppliers with acknowledged green badges are a good choice.
Maintain a sustainable communication Strategy
A crucial approach for any tour company is figuring out how the audience will find this content on your media platforms. Use the message on your media channels as a tool for marketing. Communicate responsible tourism at all times since, in order to meet the needs of today’s conscious travellers, tour operators must also be conscientious salesmen. Exchange optimal methodologies across your supply chain partners and strive for ongoing enhancements. Consider how your safari will affect both the locals and tourists who will be visiting the area.
Avoid single-use plastics
When preparing, packing, or scheduling any given safari, guidelines for a sustainable safari should always be considered, and tour operators should remind their clients to always bring reusable water bottles. Many plastics in the wild will be lessened as a result of this. Inadequate waste management practices occasionally occur, and animals such as primates have a tendency to leave this trash littered around, which over time contaminates the ecosystem. The environment should therefore be kept free of pollutants by using reusable packaging materials.
Respect of culture
Respecting the culture is essential because it acts as a guide for cultural tourism and teaches visitors about the many customs and values of the destination. Because of this, our itineraries ought to incorporate the local population in addition to focusing on natural tourist attractions like wildlife parks, reserves, sanctuaries, or landform features. In wildlife parks, where visitors experience the full village setting, this is a symbol of respect for the local culture. This is accomplished by having direct conversations with the people, learning about their customs, and participating in local activities like coffee picking, excavating, brewing, and dancing, among other things.
Always stay informed
Tour operators should always keep in mind that constant research is vital to developing a successful, sustainable safari. This helps tour operators stay informed about current issues, changes, resolutions, and developments concerning wildlife behaviour, ecosystems, and conservation challenges as a way of enhancing their safari experience.
Purchase souvenirs from locals
Engaging all relevant parties is one of the best methods to ensure that the economic aspect of the strategy is covered. Let tourism help them prosper economically as well. Locals should be included in the value chain by tour operators by encouraging their guests to purchase souvenirs from the area. In this approach, you empower people and promote economic growth in addition to just integrating them into the social element of things.
Be aware of what you bring and leave
In a perfect world, tourists would just leave their footprints behind. Sadly, we occasionally fail to notice the most obvious facts. We neglect the fact that appropriate waste management is required, not optional. You have to lead this advocacy because you design the safari schedule and are ultimately in charge of protecting the location.
Follow the Rules and Regulations
When planning for any excursion, guidelines for a sustainable safari should always come first, and visitors must abide by the laws and guidelines set forth by wildlife parks. There are rules and regulations in parks, so if one of them states that you must stay at least 25 meters away from a wild animal, make sure your guides let the other visitors know so they do not make a mistake. It is the tour operator’s duty to inform travellers of what is and is not acceptable. They should also be informed of the repercussions and actions that will follow violations of those rules.
Sensitise your clients
While enjoying their safari, guests always have a tendency to take pictures of every scene they come across. Although they think this is a wonderful idea, other locals might take offence for private reasons. It is your duty as a tour operator to thoroughly inform and sensitise your customers about the consequences of this action before the safari’s departure. It should be made very clear that before capturing such situations on camera or film, they should ask the people for permission.
Do not trade or buy anything that is listed as endangered
Tour companies frequently make the mistake of encouraging tourists to buy local souvenirs while omitting to warn that some items are prohibited from being purchased. Recall that you cannot ignore the problems in society, even if you are supporting residents’ access to economic growth. The sale of animal parts, such as ivory or marine life, leads to illegal commerce. Tour operators bear the responsibility of ensuring that such activities never take place.
It is imperative for tour operators to consider the guidelines for a sustainable safari and the ways in which the social, environmental, and economic spheres influence and affect their business. In order to balance the environmental, social, and economic components of tourism, utilise this method to objectively assess how your safari affects local stakeholders if your goal is to satisfy tourists’ desire to experience the wild and nature. As a starting point, design and develop your sustainable safaris using the above guidelines.