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Richard Smith, from Aardvark Safaris, says there is a need to increase conservation levies.
Two comments under the article ‘Timbavati defends hunt’ published on March 9, suggested variously that “there is no way that the hunting of one elephant outweighs the money brought in by photographic tourism” and “Timbavati has again increased conservation levies for tourists, so it is difficult to see just why such irresponsible hunting is permitted”.
In fact, a statement from the commercial lodges of Timbavati put their contribution from conservation levies at just 17% of the income to Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. In the same document they point out that security costs have increased significantly, in part due to the need to increase the protection for rhinos. Their figures suggested a cost increase of 800% in the past five years.
The commercial lodges in Timbavati are also in the minority in terms of physical numbers, just 19 lodges and 27 landowners. To have greater leverage it strikes me they need to increase significantly the income they are able to contribute to the reserve.
As a UK tour operator, Aardvark Safaris specialises in arranging luxury safari holidays to 15 countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean. The cheapest safari camp we sell charges R4 000 (€296) per person per night, so it may be that our clients are less sensitive to price than others may be. However, we are used to conservation levies (also called National Park fees or conservation fees) much higher than those charged by the private areas around Kruger. In the Serengeti, for example, an adult staying at Lamai Serengeti would pay over R1 300 (€96) per night for the combination of National Park entry and Concession fees.
Almost two years ago we recommended to the Ant’s Collection that they changed their ‘per stay’ conservation fee of R120 (€9), to a ‘per day’ fee. As with Timbavati, this income was desperately needed to help security, particularly the protection of rhinos on their property. We felt that few British and American clients would even notice the increase, which was only imposed on future bookings. However we suggested to Ant’s that, if they felt it necessary, they could give visitors a ‘Rhino Hero’ certificate stating the total amount of the fees they’d contributed.
The R215 (€16) ‘per stay’ conservation fee at Tanda Tula, one of the Timbavati camps we use, currently works out at less than 1% of the total costs to a client for a three-day stay. No wonder the photographic lodges don’t have much clout. A very quick, back-of-an-envelope sum suggests if the average stay is 2.5 days and this fee was doubled and became a ‘per night’ fee, the conservation fee levy would then provide the greater proportion of the reserve’s income.
I feel the need to reiterate that I’m UK based and running a tour operator specialising in luxury safaris. My experiences may not match those of others on my side of the business selling in different markets, or those marketing and running lodges. However I felt it might be interesting for those in the Kruger concessions to get the view of conservation levies from someone in my position.
Sоurсе: tourismupdate.co.za
