While there is an increasing tendency in southern Africa to devolve ownership of the land and the resources on which the industry depends to local residents, there remains a wide variety of ownership patterns, and hence partnership models, in the African Safari Lodge industry. In most cases the land and wildlife assets are owned and managed by the state and safari lodges are concessioned out to the private sector. In some cases land and its resources is owned by communities but is managed by state agencies while commercial operations are concessioned out to the private sector. In some cases, land and wildlife assets are entirely owned by the private sector as are the commercial lodges that exist on this land. Each of these different ownership and management patterns allows for a range of different linkages to be set up between varying combinations of the community, private and public sectors.

In response, the ASL Programme proposes to work with pilot lodges and lodge clusters in a representative range of these ownership and management structures, during the pilot and extension phases.
The lodges are exclusive – anything between 8 and 48 beds – with attentive staff, expert field guides, exceptional cuisine and a commitment to guest comfort. An additional dimension – one that has only been recently packaged – is the opportunity to engage with the culture and lifestyle of the indigenous people who live in the vicinity of the lodge.

For the most part the lodge operations are owned by large ecotourism business, some of which manage numerous lodges throughout the subcontinent. In the past the private sector gained access to Southern Africa’s natural assets through partnerships with the state. More recently – as land tenure reform programmes devolve land rights to local residents – communities have become partners in the lodge business.