Shorter observations from operating, guiding, lodge visits, interviews and experiments. Less formal than Ideas; no less important.
A good guide carries an enormous amount of operational knowledge in their head. A CRM carries a different kind of knowledge. Neither is complete without the other, and neither currently has a good way to share.
Applying an airport operations lens to a safari lodge reveals where the bottlenecks are — and why some of them are invisible to management until they surface as guest complaints.
The word personalisation in hospitality has been diluted almost beyond usefulness. Here is a more operational definition.
A returning guest's preferences are almost always in their previous booking correspondence. Getting to them is the problem.
The moment a booking moves from one person or system to another is where information leaks, assumptions form and guest experience begins to diverge from guest expectation.
The most important communication platform in African safari is not any official booking system. It is a messaging app not designed for business operations. This is worth thinking about.
The Operator's Brief
One useful idea about the business of safari, delivered regularly.