Remember the sustainability goal, to get people (communities), planet (wildlife and conservation), pubs (lodges) and profit all in balance. Take your own lessons from this rewilding story that has ‘people planet and profit’ just about in balance 10 years on.
Last week, a team of random friends of friends and I went to Kenya to donate, buy and deliver 100 cows to all Enonkishu and Mbokishu conservancies and to expand the rewild the conservancy area by 4,000 acres. You can see what happened here.
The only hospitality folk were: Ben Smith, owner of the wonderful Beetle & Wedge Pub in Wallingford, Oxfordshire – definitely worth a visit – and Kate Groves of Fleet Street Communications. I have led this trip four times to enable the rewilding of the first 6,000 acres in 2017, so I knew what I was letting myself in for. They did not. The short videos tell all.
Co-existing in harmony
Imagine this challenge to get to ‘sustainable’. To build your safari lodges (pubs), first you have to get to know the community (village and surrounds), persuade them all to change their plans and support the new conservancy plan, including renting out all their land so wildlife, cows, people and tourists (guests) can co-exist in harmony. You set up a special organisation called a conservancy to do this.
Then you get the wildlife, grass and trees to come to this area by: hiring rangers to stop the poaching and getting cows in to rewild the overgrazed plains. You make a unique (worldwide) mob grazing plan to make sure this works. And you build dams for game to drink from. Well, that’s what we did between 2012 and 2019. You can see a video on this by clicking here.
And the elephants came, and the wildebeest came and the zebras came. Shortly followed by leopards, lions, cheetahs – and all the rest. At the same time, you cheaply build the lodge (refurb the pub) and start the social media and marketing.
At this point, media spots you are different and you win awards (like the Publican Awards of safari lodges).
Confidence gained
You keep growing the footprint of the lodge (pub) so the economics work better. Your menus and drink offers improve each year. Your unique service culture improves. You get the confidence of clients and agents (locals) so you can up price to make proper gross profits for your offer. You get your cheap, but highly effective, tech-led finance process in. You start making money.
And you work on engaging your community (villages nearby) so they want you to be their conservancy manager and add another lodge (community). Oh and, everyone says you are different, so you decide to set up your foundation aiming to improve lives of women in the community and go from 10,000 acres conserved to 60,000 and you receive a grant of US$250,000 (£181,115) to teach other conservancies.
Ten years on that’s where ‘Collection in the Wild’ and ‘Futures in the Wild’ are. It’s a remarkable story of positivity passion resilience rewilding heroes and hospitality. I am really delighted to be part of the team.
Back to pubs, even small village pubs can easily be compared to this. There’s a way we can save more villages from turning into dormitories. Just get in touch if you want to know more. Stay positive! Be resilient! Engage the community!
If you fancy a trip of a lifetime, just email me. We will go again in next 12 months. The team loved it.
