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Creating luxury ecotourism
with the local community
Executive summary
Wilderness Safaris has a joint-venture partnership with the Torra
Conservancy, a community in Namibia, to operate Damaraland Camp,
a luxury ecotourism enterprise. Wilderness Safaris pays lease fees to
the Torra Conservancy, provides jobs for community members, uses
local skills and materials in construction, and purchases local prod-
ucts and services.
As implemented, the model demonstrates that a joint-venture part-
nership can be profitable for both the private-sector operator and the
community. Moreover, it illustrates that encouraging communities in
remote locations to diversify their income streams can be important
in order to reduce dependence on a single tourism operator for em-
ployment and business opportunities.
COUNTRY
Namibia
NAME
Damaraland Camp
COMPANY
Wilderness Safaris
TYPE
Luxury Ecotourism
FIELDS OF INCLUSION
Construction,
maintenance and services,
activities,
natural conservation
Destination: Mutual Benefit — InclusIve BusIness In TourIsm Case stuDY
DAMARALAND — NAMIBIA
Wilderness Safaris was founded in Botswana in 1983. To
date it has over 50 luxury camps and safaris across nine
African countries. Damaraland Camp was Wilderness
Safaris’ first formal camp in Namibia, with its governing
agreement signed in 1996 with the Torra Conservancy, a
community-registered trust. The Conservancy, covering
3,522 km2, is located in the Kunene region of Namibia,
within a sparsely populated area with only 1,200 resi-
dents. The Damaraland Camp has ten luxury rooms, and
offers nature drives using 4×4 vehicles, guided nature
walks and mountain-bike excursions.
Trusted relationships with local communities
Wilderness Safaris actively pursues partnerships with
their neighbours in remote and biodiverse regions. The
company’s strategic direction is guided by the so-called
4Cs: commerce, conservation, community and culture.
The sustainability of this business model is dependent
on Wilderness Safaris’ development and maintenance
of a strong relationship of trust with their community
partners. The company utilises a variety of mechanisms
to ensure that this relationship persists, including pay-
ing market-price rentals, offering profit-sharing ar-
rangements, engaging in regular dialogue and pursuing
responsible business practices.
Joint-venture partnership
With its construction of the Damaraland eco-lodge in
1996, Wilderness Safaris created the first formal joint-
venture agreement between a community and a private
tourism company in Namibia. The joint venture was
formed as a contractual partnership between the Torra
Conservancy and the private investor, with the aim of
working together to establish and operate a single tour-
ism enterprise. Wilderness Safaris funded the total cost
of lodge construction, but ownership was afterwards
transferred to the community at the rate of 20% a year,
beginning in the tenth year of the partnership. Once
it owned 100% of the camp and its assets, the commu-
nity sold 60% of the total back to Wilderness Safaris, as
community leaders wanted to retain the company as a
partner, and realised the marketing and management
benefits of the partnership. The community retained
the remaining 40% equity stake. The lodge was subse-
quently upgraded, with the process funded by both Wil-
derness Safaris and the Torra Conservancy. The Conser-
vancy’s funds were raised through the sale of the 60%
equity share to Wilderness Safaris. This is one of the
first instances in Namibia of a conservancy reinvesting
in an ecotourism project without external support from
development organisations. In addition, 10% of net ac-
commodation fees from each guest’s stay are allocated
directly to the community. As a result, the Conservancy
remains an equity partner, and the joint venture con-
tinues to lease the land from the Conservancy based on
a percentage of revenue.
Creating jobs and training
In addition to being joint owners of the camp, Torra
Conservancy community members are employees and
suppliers of goods and services, handling laundry and
rubbish-removal tasks, providing firewood and con-
servation services, and conducting cultural tours of lo-
cal communities. Local community members are also
employed on a temporary basis for the construction
and maintenance of rooms. Through its in-house train-
ing facility, Wilderness Safaris offers various training
schemes to develop community members’ skills and
provides technical training to suppliers when neces-
sary.
Pascolena (Lena) Florry, Damaraland’s
area manager, provides a striking
example of the impact of Wilderness
Safaris’ in-house training. Though
born in South Africa, Pascolena Florry
grew up in the Torra Conservancy. She
joined Damaraland as a waitress in 1997
and became the first black woman in
Namibia to be hired as a camp manager.
As area manager, she now represents
four camps in the northwest of Namibia.
Pascolena Florry believes that the
communities are proud to own their
lodges: “The conservancies have become
role models for reducing poverty and
protecting the wildlife and environment
in Namibia. It has helped a lot of women
who previously simply raised children in
the villages.”
SPOTLIGHT
Pascolena Florry – from waitress to camp manager
CASE STUDY
How the business model works
DESTINATION: MUTUAL BENEFIT — INCLUSIVE BUSINESS IN TOURISM
Business benefits
For Wilderness Safaris, the benefits of partnering with
local communities are manifold. One central benefit of
the partnership is the fact of having an award-winning
camp (Eco Awards Namibia: Award of Excellence 2012)
to add to its existing portfolio. Through the company’s
partnership with local communities, it can offer tour-
ists rare experiences, such as the opportunity to view
desert elephants. Staying in the 12-bed, self-catering
Damaraland Adventure Camp accommodation, an en-
terprise owned 50% by the Conservancy and 50% by
Wilderness Safaris, is another such experience. These
innovative products make Damaraland a unique and
memorable location, ensuring word-of-mouth adver-
tisement and return visits.
Cost effectiveness is another important benefit. Be-
yond its reduction of transportation costs, the decision
to build with local materials and techniques helped to
improve thermal stability and sound insulation, re-
Mutual benefits
Logistical burdens: Logistics associated with operating
a camp in a remote location are complex, increasing
operational costs for a business.
Purchasing locally: Wilderness Safaris aimed to purchase
local products and services where possible in order to
reduce logistical costs. Since the Torra Conservancy is
an arid area without agriculture, few local products
were available. One area of opportunity was to use
local construction materials and techniques when the
Damaraland Camp was rebuilt in 2008.
Lack of tourism experience: Before Wilderness Safaris’
market entry, the local communities had few interactions
with tourists or the tourism industry. In addition, English
was often a second or even third language for local staff
members, making it initially difficult to communicate with
guests.
On-the-job training: Wilderness Safaris provides
substantial and continuous on-the-job training. In
addition, an in-house training facility provides courses
for all staff members on housekeeping, table-waiting
and catering. Wilderness Safaris also provides career-
development opportunities and technical training for
suppliers when necessary. Finally, the company also offers
free guide training to local residents in order to expand
the pool of local skills and improve residents’ prospects
of gaining employment with other nature-based tourism
businesses in Namibia.
Staff health problems: One of the main social issues
faced by the Damaraland Camp is the high HIV rate in
local communities, which affects staff members’ health,
performance and turnover rate. Furthermore, the illness
or death of a staff member greatly affects the close-knit
community at Damaraland Camp, both emotionally and
from the perspective of staff morale.
Awareness-raising: In-house HIV-education courses and
HIV policies have been developed and implemented, with
all staff members participating. In addition, Wilderness
Safaris’ environmental and life-skills educational
programme, called “Children in the Wilderness”, inspires
children to be mindful of health and social-welfare issues
from an early age.
Loss of farmers’ livestock: The Torra Conservancy started
game ranching and signed a concession agreement with a
private hunting company to operate hunting activities in
the area. However, the increased presence of wildlife has
attracted a greater number of predators to areas where
community members also maintain livestock. Attacks
by predators on livestock result in a loss of earnings for
local farmers. This diminishes the communities’ economic
incentives to support ecotourism.
Financial compensation scheme: The Torra Conservancy
has established a financial compensation scheme to
reimburse farmers for the loss of livestock as a result of
predators. The Conservancy also employs six game guards
to protect wildlife against potential poachers, while
Wilderness Safaris itself employs a “lion guard” tasked
with protecting communities and their livestock.
Challenges and solution strategies
Challenges solution strategies
DAMARALAND — NAMIBIA
Future ambitions for the Damaraland Camp are simple:
to generate as much income as possible for both part-
ners. Although revenues for both partners are currently
comparatively low, Damaraland was a highly success-
ful camp before 2009 and the onset of the global finan-
cial crisis, and with an upturn in tourism could gener-
ate a significantly higher level of returns. In addition,
its non-financial objective is to provide an example
of a successful joint venture that other operators and
conservancies can replicate. The model implemented
by Wilderness Safaris demonstrates that business ven-
tures can be profitable for both the private sector and
the community; however, such success requires sub-
stantial input from the private operator, as well as a
long-term approach to the business.
Outlook
duced water penetration, provided employment for
local residents, and proved to be 50% cheaper than if
the camp buildings had used regular brick-based con-
struction.
Development benefits
Damaraland Camp’s financial impact on local commu-
nities is impressive given the small size of the business
overall. The annual value of payments made to the com-
munity for lease fees, laundry services and road mainte-
nance totalled more than USD 70,000 in 2013.
The camp currently employs 30 people, of whom 75%
are women and 77% come from the local community.
In sum, they earn just under USD 90,000 annually in lo-
cal currency. The construction of the camp required the
skills of 20 to 30 construction workers, some of whom
have subsequently been employed at other Wilderness
Safaris camps in Namibia. In addition, Wilderness Safa-
ris employees from local communities receive signifi-
cant training and career-development opportunities.
Lena Florry provides just one of many examples of this
training’s value (see spotlight).
Beyond these immediate impacts, the partnership sup-
ports the diversification of the Conservancy’s economic
activities, thus reducing the community’s dependence
on Wilderness Safaris alone. In 2010, for example, Wil-
derness Safaris assisted the Torra Conservancy in de-
veloping and presenting a business plan to raise a
commercial-bank loan in order to build the Damaraland
Adventure Camp. This was the first time a Namibian
conservancy had raised its own funds for construction
purposes rather than turning to donor funds.
At Damaraland, local community members live close to the lodges.
CASE STUDY
DESTINATION: MUTUAL BENEFIT — INCLUSIVE BUSINESS IN TOURISM
DAMARALAND — NAMIBIA
REFERENCES
Spenceley, Anna (2010).
Tourism Product Development
Interventions and Best
Practices in sub-Saharan
Africa: Part 2: Case studies.
Washington DC: World Bank.
Snyman, Sue (2012).
“Ecotourism joint ventures
between the private sector
and communities: An
updated analysis of the Torra
Conservancy and Damaraland
Camp partnership, Namibia.”
Tourism Management
Perspectives (4) 127–135.
United Nations Development
Programme (2012). Torra
Conservancy, Namibia. Equator
Initiative Case Study Series.
New York: UNDP.
Wilderness Holdings (2013).
Integrated Annual Report for
the year ended 28 February
2013. Gaborone: Wilderness
Holdings.
INTERVIEWS
Dr. Sue Snyman, Regional
Community Development and
Engagement Coordinator/
Researcher of Wilderness
Safaris
Louis Nortjie, Operations
Manager, Wilderness Safaris
Namibia
CONTACT
Dr. Sue Snyman
Tel: +27 11 257 5145
Email: sues@wilderness.co.za
AUTHORS
Andrew Rylance and
Dr. Anna Spenceley
DATE
Research for the case study
was conducted in May and
June of 2014
PHOTOS
Courtesy of
Wilderness Safaris
