THE SAME CAMP IN THREE LOCATIONS – THE SECRET OF KEEPING SAFARI CLIENTS HAPPY
(Posted 24th January 2015)
The all new Serengeti Explorer Camp, not just renovated but entirely re-invented, features only 10 tents, two of them very large family tents to offer the intimacy of a big game safari like in the olden days. SEC, with their relaunch, has introduced a novel way to making sure that their clients are always in the right place at the right time in a way only tented camps can shift location unlike lodges which, once built, have to remain in place.
The sprawling Serengeti, home to the massive annual migration of wildebeest and zebras from the low grass plains between the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the national park itself all the way to the Masai Mara, is one park where only ‘insider knowledge’ makes certain that visitors actually get to see these large congregations of wildlife.
Due to the nature of the annual migration, best documented in Alan Root’s award winning feature film ‘The Year of the Wildebeest’ are the herds almost constantly on the move in search of pasture. This can at times result in visitors finding the Serengeti strangely empty of game, perhaps because they have been booked in a lodge or camp where at that particular time of the year the big herds are not found, though there is of course always a significant number of ‘resident’ game found in the neighbourhood.
Serengeti Explorer does not have that problem though. Across the year, does the camp use three campsites where the tents are set up, always into the path of the migration and always near the big herds, giving clients staying there the assurance that indeed they go home with that experience of a lifetime, having seen the migration close up and personal from nearby.
All facilities are under canvas, including the lounge and dining tent, giving guests the classic safari experience yet not lacking any modern amenities. Power, generated by solar panels, is available day and night and even an internet uplink, via satellite and a local router, guarantees that guest stay connected and can tweet their pictures or upload them on their other social media sites in the public areas of the camp. Open sided 4×4’s are the only mode of transport uses, adding to the authenticity of the camp experience.
The concept of the camp, which is part of the ARP Travel Group, has been described by a source in Arusha as ‘ingenious and bound to be a success, because where else do you have the same camp with such facilities at three different locations across the year’, no doubt music in the ears of the owners as it comes from a competitor, one who for a change was not trying to downtalk the opposition.
As if there are not enough reasons already to visit Tanzania – see my recent article on the Selous Game Reserve via https://atcnews.org/2015/01/03/big-bigger-selous-the-worlds-largest-game-reserve/ – now for sure there is one more reason to visit the Serengeti and guaranteed to be near the migration, no matter what time of year one visits.
