Leopard or elephant in 2025

[375Fox]

As someone that has reviewed the books on a few Zimbabwean Operators P&L and spent hundreds of days in country, here is my perspective.

A booth at a premiere show typically runs around $20k, OR you can donate a hunt in kind to offset that. A Zimbabwean Operator that wishes to gain that exposure could donate the cash or the hunt in kind, but either way its nearly the same cost to them.

Let’s do a scenario. I decide to offer up an Elephant hunt to “insert name of preferred global safari non-profit expo”. I’m a mid-sized Zimbabwe operator and I have 6 elephants on quota per year. I have a staff of 15, and I have a 3 year concession lease for hospitality, plus I own two Land Cruisers to service clients and manage camp. The cost of one of my elephant tags, payable to the government is $13,000 USD. 14 days of my PH’s time wholesale inclusive of vehicle is $300 a day or $4200. The Operator is expected to cover the fuel at about $6 per gallon equivelant or another $600 for the hunt.

So in the above donation scenario, as a break even, a real-life donation of $17,800 would get me access to the show. Unfortunately, I just burned 1/6th of my elephant inventory for the year and would need to recover that donation by booking ALL the other elephant hunts at that show. At an average price of $30,000 per elephant hunt on the five remaining, that’s a $150,000 in gross revenue and a Net operating income of about $30,000.

So at the end of the day, I have to decide if I want the marketing exposure where I give away $17,800 in order to sell five more elephant hunts that produce $30,000 Net to me, or just sell the sixth hunt on my own and net around $45,000 for the year.

The math doesn’t work very well. So how do Zim operators advertise at shows? Some fly over and do bookings in the bars. Some join consortiums and cost-share a single booth. Others donate to the national guides association and gain clientele that way. A handful have big enough operations to just bite the bullet and do the shows directly (Charlton McCallum, Dalton & York, formerly Chifuti are a few names that I can think of)

That’s a different model than RSA, where I could donate a $20,000 plains game hunt to the show for access, but I own all my game, set up a package that reduces inventory I don’t really have a high value on, and perhaps be out $5000 total value and $2500 in hard-currency equivalent to make the donation. I also can sell a lot more hunts per year in the RSA model than I could if I was in the Zimbabwean model due to quota limitations.

I’m sure there are others but at DSC show last year there was charlton McCallum safaris, Dalton and York, Mbalabala, Mokore, John sharp, Brent hein, Shaun buffee, Tanya Blake, HHK, Gavin Rorke safaris, Pete fick safaris, Thierry Labat safaris with their own booths. There are a number of zim PHs at other booth such as Tinie kok at at hunting consortium booth or guav johnson at Mayo Oldiri’s booth. There will be some overlap and some other PHs that attend the SCI show. I think that is enough to say Zimbabwe is well represented.
I’d argue the thought process behind your math is incorrect. If an outfitter chooses not to attend a show they are choosing not to grow their business. If they are happy where they are at that’s fine, but It’s the difference of hunting an area with 6 elephant bulls per year and no other game vs leasing and developing an area with a large quota of buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, hippo, croc and PG or buying in advance a large block of quota on a prime area. Attending the shows is an investment in their business. You are also assuming all donations are 100% and done every year when they are not. The outfitter can choose to only do a 50% donation (or other specified number) take part of the auction proceeds to offset their donation. South African donations are also much more highly scrutinized as far as it affects booth placement because the true cost to outfitter is well known. The math for small South African outfitters (especially newer outfitters) attending small regional shows is not that attractive either, but again it’s an investment in their business to grow their name. The South African model is less risk and more profitable on paper but it’s also much more highly competitive. South African “outfitters” come and go frequently. The requirements to be a PH and outfitter there are the easiest in Africa and as a result many eventually move on to other careers.
You have a very different philosophy on choosing hunts than I do. I’m sure you’ve been very successful, but you are looking for something very different than I am. I am willing to pay to hunt with established outfitters in established areas. I also hunt in different countries. I have no problem paying a premium for quality service and quality areas to ensure I have a good first trip before I move on to a different area.