How the Safari Industry Works in 2026, Mapped: Who Owns the Land, the Camps and the Companies, Who Earns What, and How an Itinerary Is Built

A safari is sold by one company and delivered by several: the land belongs to a park authority, a county or thousands of landowners; a camp company leases a piece of it and sells the beds; a bush airline sells the seats; a ground handler supplies the vehicles and guides; and a planner, sometimes with a travel advisor in front, puts it all on one invoice. At published 2026 rates, one adult's peak-season night at Kicheche Mara North in Kenya costs US$1,125, of which US$130 is the conservancy fee, and a seven-night flying safari in northern Tanzania carries US$1,544.70 per person in flights and government fees before a single bed is paid for. The drawings below take each layer in turn, then show who owns which company, how a route is assembled, and what a day in camp looks like.

Verified 29 September 2026 · TANAPA, Ngorongoro and Maasai Mara tariffs · Mara North Conservancy and MMWCA · Kicheche 2026 rack rates · Coastal Aviation's July 2026 fares · company pages, filings and trade press for ownership · re-read at source

The colour key: every drawing on this page uses the same six colours

• You
• Planners and advisors
• Camps and lodges
• Vehicles and guides
• Bush airlines
• Land and fees

How does the safari industry work?

Money moves down and the trip moves up through four tiers: you pay one company, usually a planner or tour operator; it pays the camps, the bush airline and a ground handler; and the camps pass park, concession or conservancy fees to whoever controls the land. Each tier sets its own terms. Camps hold rooms for 5 to 21 days and ask deposits of 20 to 30%; airlines sell seats leg by leg; park authorities charge by the day and, at Ngorongoro Crater, by the vehicle. The planner's work is lining all of it up on the same dates, then answering the phone when one piece moves. The price on each tier below is a published 2026 figure for a named example; the hold and deposit terms are set out in how booking a safari works.

Sources for the tags: Kicheche's 2026 rack rates (issued 5 June 2025), Coastal Aviation's timetable and price list (updated July 2026, fares gross and excluding taxes), TANAPA's 2023/24 tariff, the latest the park authority publishes, and the camp and airline terms checked for how booking a safari works. Where the lines between tiers blur, the ownership map further down shows why: some camp companies own planners, and one has its own airline.

Who owns the land a safari camp sits on?

Rarely the camp: the Serengeti is a national park run by TANAPA, Ngorongoro is run by its own conservation authority, the Maasai Mara National Reserve by Narok County, the Mara conservancies are leased from 16,530 landowners, the Okavango Delta is communally owned Tribal Land under the Tawana Land Board, and South Africa's Sabi Sand is a reserve of private landowners with no fence between it and Kruger. Who controls the land decides three things a traveller feels: the fee added to every night, how many beds and vehicles are allowed, and whether a guide may leave the track to reach a sighting. The six tiles below take one of each.

Two things follow for anyone comparing quotes. Fees are real money and are often left out of a camp's headline rate: Kicheche lists its conservancy fee separately, and Tanzania's park fees carry 18% VAT on top. And the same animals can be watched under different rules a few kilometres apart: a guide in Mara North may leave the track for a leopard, while in the Serengeti vehicles must keep to it. What the seasons mean for each place is in the Great Migration, month by month and where safaris happen.

Who owns the major safari companies?

Six groups own many of the names a safari buyer meets: Wilderness (Yellow Zebra, Jacada Travel, a stake in Governors' Collection and its own airline), Nawiri Group (Asilia Africa's camps and the planner Go2Africa), Abercrombie & Kent Travel Group (the A&K Sanctuary lodges), Voyageurs du Monde (Original Travel and 65% of Extraordinary Journeys), Flight Centre Travel Group (Scott Dunn) and the Friedkin family (Legendary Expeditions); Singita and Micato are family businesses, and Aardvark Safaris is controlled by an employee trust company. Ownership matters for one practical reason. A planner that belongs to a camp group can steer you towards the group's camps. None of these arrangements is improper, and several of these companies score well in this site's own reviews, but a buyer is entitled to know before weighing the advice. The lines in the drawing show the kind of link, because a partnership is not a purchase.

Where does the money go on a safari?

Most of it goes to the camp, whose rate covers the room, meals, drinks and game drives; the land's fee is added on top; the planner's share is inside the camp's rate and is never published; and flights and park fees are fixed prices nobody negotiates. The two receipts below use published 2026 prices. The first is one night in a Kenyan conservancy; the second is what a Tanzanian route costs in flights and government fees before any camp is paid.

Who is paid out of that night

1. The camp keeps its rate, less whatever it pays the company that sold the night. Camps sell to the trade at a net rate below the public rack rate. Neither figure for the gap is published, and Safari.com says lodges and operators “are required to sell at the same industry rate, whether you book direct or through a specialist” (Safari.com FAQ).
2. The planner earns that commission or that gap. Safari.com: “We are paid a commission by the lodges when our clients stay.”
3. If a travel advisor introduced you, the planner pays the advisor. At Safari.com's published 6 to 8% of the land cost, that would be US$59.70 to US$79.60 of the US$995 camp rate, by our arithmetic, paid after you travel.
4. The conservancy fee goes to the conservancy. In the Mara model each landowner receives a guaranteed lease fee tied to the lease they sign, according to the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association.

What a whole trip costs once the camps are added, by country and budget, is in what a Tanzania safari costs, what a Kenya safari costs and the safari price-per-night decoder; why the rates are as high as they are is in why safaris cost what they do.

How is a safari itinerary put together?

Night by night and supplier by supplier: the planner books each camp, each flight, the ground handler and the park permits separately, lines them up on the same dates and sends you one invoice, so the seven-night Tanzanian route below needs eight bookings with five companies and two park authorities. The route is an illustration, not a quote: a classic August trip, when the northern Serengeti is the place for the Mara River crossings, flying north and finishing at Ngorongoro Crater. Flight times and fares are from Coastal Aviation's July 2026 schedule, and the northern Serengeti camp is Asilia's Sayari, whose day is drawn in the next section. Read across a row to see who delivers each day; read down a column to see how much one supplier carries.

• 1invoice, from the planner
• 3places to sleep over 7 nights
• 1ground handler for transfers and the crater
• 2scheduled flights, bought seat by seat
• 2park authorities: TANAPA and the NCAA
• 8separate bookings behind the one invoice

Each coloured cell is a separate contract with its own terms. If Sayari were full on night one, the planner would have to move the Kogatende flight, which moves the Manyara flight, which moves the crater lodge and the handler's vehicle. That chain is why an itinerary drafted by an AI assistant, which cannot see camp availability or airline seats, is a brief for a planner rather than a trip you can book; how booking a safari works covers the holds and deadlines behind each cell, and the Tanzania luxury safari guide the camps.

What happens on a typical day on safari?

Two outings and a long middle: at Asilia's Sayari Camp in the northern Serengeti the wake-up call comes at 05h45, the morning walk or drive leaves at 06h30 and is back around 10h00, lunch is at 12h30, high tea at 15h30, the afternoon game drive leaves at 16h00, sundowners are at 18h00 and dinner at 19h30. The dial shows Sayari's day as the camp itself published it in January 2026 (Asilia).

The rules of the road, where they are published

• 6guests at most on Asilia's shared game drives; private vehicles can be arranged (Asilia)
• 5vehicles at most at a sighting in Mara North Conservancy, ten minutes each; the rest wait 100 metres back
• 336acres per bed in Mara North Conservancy (Mara North)

Who is driving: how safari guides qualify

In Kenya, guides certify through the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association's Bronze, Silver and Gold levels, each at least three years apart; in southern Africa, through FGASA, whose professional designations depend on days logged in the field. Ask a planner which level your guide holds; at a good camp the answer comes quickly.

How does booking a safari work, from first enquiry to the airstrip?

In six steps: you brief two or three operators, each places holds on the camps that last 5 to 21 days, a deposit of 20 to 30% (50% at Safari.com) turns the holds into bookings, the balance falls due 45 to 90 days before arrival, cancelling costs the full price from 29 to 60 days out, and on the trip the out-of-hours contact is the one that counts. The ranges come from the published terms of six camp companies and three bush airlines, set out company by company in how booking a safari works; operator-level terms for 13 companies are compared in the payment terms index.

1. 1BriefTwo or three operators, the same brief to each
2. 2Holds5 to 21 days per camp, then the rooms go back on sale
3. 3Deposit20 to 30% at the camps; 50% at Safari.com
4. 4Balance45 to 90 days before arrival
5. 5Full chargeCancelling costs everything from 29 to 60 days out
6. 6TravelAsk who answers at 6am if a flight is cancelled

Who should you book a safari with: the camp, a planner or a marketplace?

It depends on what you are buying: one camp can be booked direct at the same price a specialist would charge, a route of several camps and flights needs a planner, a fixed-date group trip can be bought online, and a marketplace passes your enquiry on to operators; whichever you use, ask who pays the company you are dealing with. The six channels below are the ones a safari buyer meets, with the question that tells you most about each. The examples are companies this site has reviewed or checked; which of the specialists suits which traveller is scored in the safari planner index and compared in who should you book your safari through?

Three rules for buying a safari once you know how the industry works

1 · Ask who owns the company quoting you, and whose camps are on the quote. Yellow Zebra Safaris and Jacada Travel belong to Wilderness, and Go2Africa shares a parent with Asilia Africa. A good planner says so plainly and will quote a rival group's camp when it suits your dates and your brief better. This site's reviews record ownership; the US and UK safari operator comparison sets it beside each company's financial protection.

2 · Ask for every supplier by name, and which fees are included. Camps, airlines, the ground handler, park and conservancy fees. Kicheche and Singita list fees separately from their rates, Tanzania's park fees carry 18% VAT, and Ngorongoro's crater fee is charged per vehicle, so it costs each traveller more in a small party: US$147.50 each for two, US$295 for one.

3 · Ask who answers the phone at 6am on day five. The planner's office may be in another time zone; the ground handler is in the country. Get both numbers in writing before the balance is paid, and check the company itself against how to verify a safari operator.

What changed in the safari industry in 2025 and 2026

Two ownership moves and two price lists: Aardvark Safaris passed to an employee trust company, Legendary Expeditions and Chem Chem began selling together as Auberge Safari, Coastal Aviation updated its fares, and the Maasai Mara's peak ticket stands at US$200 for 12 hours.

19 December 2025. Companies House records Aardvark Trustee Company Limited as holding 75% or more of Aardvark Safaris' shares and votes from that date.

4 May 2026. Auberge Collection announced Auberge Safari, nine Tanzanian properties from Legendary Expeditions and Chem Chem Safari sold under one name; its FAQ says it is “neither a sale nor an acquisition”.

July 2026. Coastal Aviation updated its 2023 to 2027 timetable and price list: Arusha to Seronera US$259 and Arusha to Kogatende US$355 per adult, gross.

July 2026. The migration season opened in the Maasai Mara with the reserve charging non-resident adults US$200 for a 12-hour ticket until December, twice the January to June rate (Daily Nation).