We couldn’t help but see that Tanzania’s tourism sector was rich with safari and conservation expertise, but ill-equipped to meet the changing needs of international tourism and not quite living up to its promise in conservation or empowerment. So we devised an impact-focused business model that could be a sustainable force for good in the region by harnessing the expertise of existing operators, offering a better quality of service, engaging the local population, expanding and investing to protect vulnerable conservation areas off the traditional safari track, and delivering a return on investment for our initial angel investor backers.
Atypical business model
It was clear that this venture was not going to break any records for financial dividends. There are always going to be trade-offs when you want to build an atypical business model around the concept of purpose. But we knew it could hit a sweet spot between finance and impact – an increasingly important consideration for portfolio managers, investors and potential customers.
Asilia grew from 120 people in 2004 to a pre-COVID-19 headcount of almost 1,000 people across 21 lodges in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, with offices in South Africa, the UK and the US. As the business model matured, longer-horizon-focused institutional investors came on board. This has helped us to expand into vital conservation areas that take time to cultivate as safari destinations and would have been at risk without intervention.
So how did we grow to reach the top of the TripAdvisor charts? How have we built an impact business that can attract significant funding to save endangered habitats? And, how can this story from the remote African bush translate into your own work?
Within our original purpose to deploy capital as a force for good in Africa, empowering people is fundamental. We set out to inspire and elevate the people working for us, and their communities, safe in the knowledge that an engaged team and a supportive community would light a fire under our ambitions for the business and the region.
Collective purpose
This empowerment starts with training – and, for Asilia, it needs to. According to UNICEF, almost seven in every 10 children aged between 14 and 17 years in Tanzania are not enrolled in secondary education. The majority of women work in agriculture, most of them as unpaid family helpers. Where they are paid, on average, women earn around half as much as men.
The skills required to deliver a world-class safari experience, from the myriad of logistics to guiding, are complex and scarce in Tanzania’s rural economy. So we train our staff on the job in the skills that they will need to help us and them succeed. In creating a close-knit culture of collective purpose, we wanted to recruit and grow more from within rather than having to source talent externally. This builds loyalty and shared purpose, while also opening up doors if staff do want to move on.