2022 Inflation, hunt deposits, contracts and travel costs

[375 Ruger Fan]

This is just a few ramblings on some things I have experienced or seen lately, regarding inflation on hunts and travel:

I received an email from Booking.com this morning stating a hotel reservation I made in August 2021 for a summer 2022 trip to Alaska has a mistake. Instead of $170 per night, it actually $270. My reservation is 6 months old and they just noticed it now. Yea, right. I emailed them back and we'll see how this turns out.

I booked a Wyoming antelope hunt in August of 2021 for a hunt in Sept 2022. In late December, I received a letter from the outfitter stating all the inflation woes of higher fuel prices, trespass fees, groceries, etc. The outfitter stated because of all the higher prices, he was increasing my hunt cost by $200. Not a huge increase, but it didn't sit well with me. I wrote him an email saying I thought we had agreed on price and specific hunt dates. He wrote back saying I had the option to accept the higher price or cancel with 100% refund. I told him I wanted the hunt, but doubted I would hunt with him again if this is how he was going to run his business.

Another Wyoming outfitter, one that I've had a moose hunt deposit and contract with for 5 years, sent me a letter asking for an $1100 increase. I knew my contracted hunt rate, being 5 years old, was much lower than the current rates posted on the website. Part of the problem is as a non-resident, it is very hard to draw a tag, hence the 5 years and no hunt yet. I was actually thinking I needed to tip the outfitter quite well to make up for my low price. We came to a win-win agreement that if I draw a tag this year, the $1100 increase he is asking for will be in the form of a trophy fee. The outfitter has a near 100% success rate on moose, so he eagerly agreed. If I don't draw a tag this year, we'll renegotiate the contract or he'll allow me to cancel with a 100% refund of my deposit. Seems fair and agreeable.

One other observation: My Montana elk outfitter typically books up to two or three years in advance. Right now, all their rifle hunts are booked solid through the 2024 season, but they currently have some archery openings for 2023 and 2024. A year ago I booked a 2023 archery elk hunt for me and a 2024 rifle hunt for me and a son-in-law. Glad I booked them when I did!

Not knowing what inflation is going to be over the next year or two, how does a business establish a price today for a hunt in 2025? It will be higher priced, perhaps significantly higher. I look for some contracts to even have some sort of adjustment clause in it.

Comments?

 

[Frederik]

Welcome to Inflation sorry but you have had such low inflation over the last 10 years compared to ours and it does not sit well with anyone.
Somehow we keep surviving although it means working harder but sometimes it just too much to keep up also. I think all of us living in Southern Africa has learned to make plans cut down on things and prioritise then some have the means and keep ahead but they are few.

Last year this time we paid R13-14.00 for a liter of diesel its now R20.00 food has gone through the roof especially meat just like yours but we eat mostly game hunted which helps even we still pay for the game its a vacation and breakaway also.
I have no idea how the minimum wage earners survive if I just look at our grocery bills each month that has definetley doubled in the last 4 years.

So I feel your pain but we keep surviving so far must be the hunting in our blood.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Just pulled up a conversion chart... Off in my far-flung part of Alaska, we were sitting at $4.50 per gallon for several years, and it just went up to 5 bucks a gallon a couple of months ago. That's 75.61 rands for you folks keeping score in RSA. Or roughly... same cost as your diesel? I have zero idea what diesel costs here. I'm not the greatest with conversions, so I could be off some. Your mileage literally may vary...

 

[Deleted member 40394]

My mule deer guy I wanted to hunt with at some point just went up $1000. Found that out last week.
the elk outfitter I was looking at went up and they are booked to 2028.

I figure I am just going to build points for a while out west and spend my money on Africa and try to get two africa trips in the next 4-5 years or so.

Could always hunt public later on or whatever.

 

[TucsonFX4]

This is a great topic. I think businesses have to find ways to adjust, especially when their business model necessitates locking prices and reservations multiple years in advance. HOWEVER, I believe there’s good ways and bad ways of overcoming lose-inducing old rates. Your booking.com example is terrible and not how business should be done. Your next example of Wyoming hunt with $200 increase isn’t good, but isn’t terrible. I’m actually not sure how to approach it better without having an idea of the details of the business.

I actually had a poor experience (well several, but I’ll just stick with the most recent) with booking a fight reservation with American. Advertised a $377 round trip when I searched for a flight, clicked on it to book, as soon as I get to the return fight, the price jumps to $542, unless I take a red eye flight (domestic fight so red eye is ridiculous). This jump in cost is a little ridiculous, but I can accept their tactics with this, though the jump in cost for the next cheapest option is quite crazy. This is where it gets worse, as I go through the whole booking process and enter payment and the system says there is an error and boots me out. I have to start over and the price has gone from $542 to $612. I decided to call American and they basically said oh well, take it or leave (they weren’t rude). I interpret this maneuvering as their system saying, we’ll if he’s willing to pay $542 instead of our click bait of $377, we can probably get even more out of him, so they cancelled my process and raised the price. I hate dealing with the airlines. It will be tough for me to plan a safari without using them though!

 

[uplander01]

Many of us in the shooting sports business have been saying for years that this whole airline travel to remote places in the world thing is evolving into a hobby for the extremely wealthy. Alaska is a stunning example of this, the cost to hunt there are astronomical. Africa if you can overcome the travel cost and barriers is still a pretty good value considering what you get for the actual hunt. The great really established outfitters will survive in whatever part of the world, but there will be no room for much young talent coming up in that profession. What does that mean?,....there will be a last generation. People aren't going to re-mortgage their house to go hunting, at least if you have any sense at all. It would be hard to get the truth out of SCI, but if you ask,I know for a fact they are trying to figure out ways to get more people involved in their organization. Look for them to be reaching out in a big way to waterfowl and upland crowd (which is enormous but mostly locally engaged) in the near future, and most of that crowd would never pay what Africa or Alaska cost. But SCI knows that their main clientele is getting old and dying off, and most of their family members they are leaving their money too could care less about hunting. Why do you think you are seeing so many incredible high end hunting rifles and shotguns on the used market? There are indicators....Just my observations and opinions.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I'll echo what @uplander01 said, regarding air travel... Living in Alaska I see the travel costs he talks about. I live in a regional hub that is a jumping off spot for folks headed to SW Alaska to fish and hunt. We have one airline into town and the cost of the Anchorage to us flight is often as much as the the leg to get here in the first place - and then you have the air taxi on top of that (if you're doing your own hunt). For some of you on here, you're in a good enough place financially that it's not a big deal. But that's sure not the case for everybody. And because of my job and the personal interests I have I know how much a moose or bear hunt can cost. It stuns me that I paid quite a bit less for my ten animals in African than someone from the lower 48 would pay for a guided moose hunt in my back yard. Sadly, I don't think that's going to go the other direction anytime soon.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

Yea. I have pretty much scratched Alaska off of my places to visit and hunt.
wish I could go back to the 90’s.
I should have been born 20 years earlier. Lol
I just hope freight don’t go up too much in the next year.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

@justin wiles ... Don't give up yet. You look pretty young. I'm biased but it's worth the wait.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

This is just a few ramblings on some things I have experienced or seen lately, regarding inflation on hunts and travel:

I received an email from Booking.com this morning stating a hotel reservation I made in August 2021 for a summer 2022 trip to Alaska has a mistake. Instead of $170 per night, it actually $270. My reservation is 6 months old and they just noticed it now. Yea, right. I emailed them back and we'll see how this turns out.

I booked a Wyoming antelope hunt in August of 2021 for a hunt in Sept 2022. In late December, I received a letter from the outfitter stating all the inflation woes of higher fuel prices, trespass fees, groceries, etc. The outfitter stated because of all the higher prices, he was increasing my hunt cost by $200. Not a huge increase, but it didn't sit well with me. I wrote him an email saying I thought we had agreed on price and specific hunt dates. He wrote back saying I had the option to accept the higher price or cancel with 100% refund. I told him I wanted the hunt, but doubted I would hunt with him again if this is how he was going to run his business.

Another Wyoming outfitter, one that I've had a moose hunt deposit and contract with for 5 years, sent me a letter asking for an $1100 increase. I knew my contracted hunt rate, being 5 years old, was much lower than the current rates posted on the website. Part of the problem is as a non-resident, it is very hard to draw a tag, hence the 5 years and no hunt yet. I was actually thinking I needed to tip the outfitter quite well to make up for my low price. We came to a win-win agreement that if I draw a tag this year, the $1100 increase he is asking for will be in the form of a trophy fee. The outfitter has a near 100% success rate on moose, so he eagerly agreed. If I don't draw a tag this year, we'll renegotiate the contract or he'll allow me to cancel with a 100% refund of my deposit. Seems fair and agreeable.

One other observation: My Montana elk outfitter typically books up to two or three years in advance. Right now, all their rifle hunts are booked solid through the 2024 season, but they currently have some archery openings for 2023 and 2024. A year ago I booked a 2023 archery elk hunt for me and a 2024 rifle hunt for me and a son-in-law. Glad I booked them when I did!

Not knowing what inflation is going to be over the next year or two, how does a business establish a price today for a hunt in 2025? It will be higher priced, perhaps significantly higher. I look for some contracts to even have some sort of adjustment clause in it.

Comments?

Regarding the Booking.com fiasco, I'd be inclined to tell them to stick it in their ear. Their mistake is theirs, not yours. If they intend to hold a hard line, I'd be inclined to tell them you'll refer the matter to your state's attorney general. But that's a big business and a bit different.

For the hunting outfitters, a bit of a different story. Sudden surges in their costs have to be borne one way or the other. To hold a hard line is to put them at danger of putting their business down for the count. It's a tough business model when you're a small business to sell something you don't provide for a year or perhaps longer out and can't be certain what your costs will be. Yah I know....it's what they signed up to, so they SHOULD hold their prices.

And it's not just fuel, there's food and labor of course. Both of which have crazy inflation at this moment.

A little story about my 19 year old son. He is currently in trade school for HVAC. He decided a few weeks ago that he could swing school and a job. He took a job with a construction company with absolutely no skills, he's just a laborer. That's fine, he's 19 and has to start somewhere. Well he STARTED at $18 an hour! Yesterday he put on his Indeed profile who he was working for. Almost immediately he started getting messages from other construction companies looking for laborers with jobs starting at $25 and hour.

 

[lockingblock]

Frankly, for US outfitters, this is simply another excuse to raise prices. Same for Canada.

Doing the actual math, a horseback moose hunt in the Yukon is banking well over 30% profit. It’s absurd. Profit is good but there’s a point of absurdity and most US/CD outfitters are there.

60k for a stone sheep? Really? They aren’t that rare and the accomodations are a tiny tent, one guide, and freeze dried food. 35k for a moose? We dodge those with our cars…one attacked my bird feeder in my yard. I could shoot it from my bathroom window…

The issue is that neophyte city dwellers with more money than sense will stroke a check and order everything in the Kuiu catalog…just for bragging rights. Can’t blame an outfitter for taking their money.

 

[BnC 04]

I understand inflation and the need to adjust or risk sinking if your an US/Canada outfitter. However, IF fuel, food ect ect were to return to a somewhat normal stabilized cost I wonder how many outfitters would be contacting their hunters offering a refund due the reduced operating cost. My bet is none and that increased hunt cost becomes the new norm until the next large jump of goods hits again and up we go.

 

[WAB]

Perhaps it’s just my background, but I don’t really understand the use of guides/outfitters when it’s not legally required. I’ve hunted all over the State of Alaska and have never used a guide there. Some species; griz and sheep, I took while a resident. However, there are many opportunities that can be pursued as a non-resident without a guide (moose, black bear, caribou for ex).

You need to do your homework and
Develop some wilderness/survival skills, but it can be done if this is really something that’s important to you.

The same holds true in the Rockies. Many good ranches in trophy areas allow hunters. Some want a trespass fee, others just ask for the landowner tag to get their $15 from the State. I’m certainly not going to list the ranches I hunt, but with a little homework you can find some of your own.

As I think about it, I believe that the only guided big game hunt I have been on in NA was our Coues deer hunt last year. I have a bunch of trophies that would indicate that you can do just fine on your own at a fraction of the cost of using an outfitter.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Doing the actual math, a horseback moose hunt in the Yukon is banking well over 30% profit. It’s absurd. Profit is good but there’s a point of absurdity and most US/CD outfitters are there.

@lockingblock if you've done the actual math, can you show us?

Feeding and taking care of horses year round must be expensive. The hunting season in Yukon is short, maybe 3-4 months. So the total hunts available is a small number to recoup costs that are borne all year.

 

[TheGrayRider]

Nothing unusual about inflation. Politicians and consumers just attempt to ignore it until they have to pay up.

Peter H. Capstick estimated a rhino hunt cost in 1975 dollars in his famous first book (published in 1977) at about $28,000. Look at that same amount of money in 2022.


Value of $28,000 from 1975 to 2022
$28,000 in 1975 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $145,101.41 today, an increase of $117,101.41 over 47 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.56% per year between 1975 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 418.22%.

 

[375Fox]

I understand inflation and the need to adjust or risk sinking if your an US/Canada outfitter. However, IF fuel, food ect ect were to return to a somewhat normal stabilized cost I wonder how many outfitters would be contacting their hunters offering a refund due the reduced operating cost. My bet is none and that increased hunt cost becomes the new norm until the next large jump of goods hits again and up we go.

This is exactly what happened when Canadian dollar gained on US dollar. Prices were never adjusted.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

Perhaps it’s just my background, but I don’t really understand the use of guides/outfitters when it’s not legally required. I’ve hunted all over the State of Alaska and have never used a guide there. Some species; griz and sheep, I took while a resident. However, there are many opportunities that can be pursued as a non-resident without a guide (moose, black bear, caribou for ex).

You need to do your homework and
Develop some wilderness/survival skills, but it can be done if this is really something that’s important to you.

The same holds true in the Rockies. Many good ranches in trophy areas allow hunters. Some want a trespass fee, others just ask for the landowner tag to get their $15 from the State. I’m certainly not going to list the ranches I hunt, but with a little homework you can find some of your own.

As I think about it, I believe that the only guided big game hunt I have been on in NA was our Coues deer hunt last year. I have a bunch of trophies that would indicate that you can do just fine on your own at a fraction of the cost of using an outfitter.

I think it’s a time thing as well. I don’t have a month to find a good mule deer or elk on public. I can take off work Max of 10 days. That’s not a lot of time to go the public route and be successful especially since I live in SC. Spending $6000-8000 k to have great odds on a good animal is better then spending a couple thousand and not ever seeing one. That’s my opinion. If I was retired I would hunt exclusively on public but for now I don’t go public unless I am turkey or duck hunting.

 

[375Fox]

Perhaps it’s just my background, but I don’t really understand the use of guides/outfitters when it’s not legally required. I’ve hunted all over the State of Alaska and have never used a guide there. Some species; griz and sheep, I took while a resident. However, there are many opportunities that can be pursued as a non-resident without a guide (moose, black bear, caribou for ex).

You need to do your homework and
Develop some wilderness/survival skills, but it can be done if this is really something that’s important to you.

The same holds true in the Rockies. Many good ranches in trophy areas allow hunters. Some want a trespass fee, others just ask for the landowner tag to get their $15 from the State. I’m certainly not going to list the ranches I hunt, but with a little homework you can find some of your own.

As I think about it, I believe that the only guided big game hunt I have been on in NA was our Coues deer hunt last year. I have a bunch of trophies that would indicate that you can do just fine on your own at a fraction of the cost of using an outfitter.

I guess I look at it different. I look at all the people who go on unsuccessful unguided hunts and continue trying with limited success. If they are enjoying themselves and have the time, great, but they are spending a lot each year between time off work, travel, accommodation, other costs. I’d rather pay a guide for his knowledge, be successful, and move on to a new hunt, new area the next year.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

I guess I look at it different. I look at all the people who go on unsuccessful unguided hunts and continue trying with limited success. If they are enjoying themselves and have the time, great, but they are spending a lot each year between time off work, travel, accommodation, other costs. I’d rather pay a guide for his knowledge, be successful, and move on to a new hunt, new area the next year.

I spent a week each year for 10 years hunting deer on public in Missouri. Had a blast. I want to do it again with my same buddies. But.
I have zero mountable deer to show for it. At this point I want a big buck so I look back and would have been better off saving for a few years then going the guided route. I could have done that and had 2-3 nice bucks on the wall probably.
Also I am starting to hit the age where I like convenience. Camping in a tent for a week or two and maybe seeing a fork horn is not my opinion of fun… anymore.
I used to duck hunt public. Always killed birds but would take a day or so of scouting to locate them. That’s wasted days now so I just pay someone else to scout. I just Show up and kill em now and don’t have to worry about anyone coming in on me and such hunting private.

 

[375Fox]

Frankly, for US outfitters, this is simply another excuse to raise prices. Same for Canada.

Doing the actual math, a horseback moose hunt in the Yukon is banking well over 30% profit. It’s absurd. Profit is good but there’s a point of absurdity and most US/CD outfitters are there.

60k for a stone sheep? Really? They aren’t that rare and the accomodations are a tiny tent, one guide, and freeze dried food. 35k for a moose? We dodge those with our cars…one attacked my bird feeder in my yard. I could shoot it from my bathroom window…

The issue is that neophyte city dwellers with more money than sense will stroke a check and order everything in the Kuiu catalog…just for bragging rights. Can’t blame an outfitter for taking their money.

There is a lot you are not considering with this post and nearly belongs in the political thread. Why is a quality bighorn sheep hunt in Canada 4x the price of a hunt in Wyoming? The tags are guaranteed and the hunter doesn’t have to wait a lifetime to draw. Stone sheep tags for non-residents are limited and less available than they were 30 years ago. Canadian outfitters have to purchase guiding areas that are sometimes worth millions of dollars. High quality USA outfitters have to put investment up front to lease high quality areas. It’s no different than any business, the owners deserve a return on their investment and risk.