World Travel Awards Safari Winners: Every Year's Leading Safari Companies and What the Vote Measures

Abercrombie & Kent is the most-awarded company in the World Travel Awards' safari categories, with 17 wins since 2011, followed by Rhino Africa (12), Yellow Zebra Safaris (11), Twiga Tours (7), Go2Africa (7), &Beyond (5) and Safari.com (3). The current holders are Twiga Tours as World's Leading Safari Company (2022 to 2025), Abercrombie & Kent as World's Leading Luxury Safari Company (2020 to 2025) and, from the Africa results announced in Zanzibar on 28 August 2026, Safari.com, Africa Geographic and Rhino Africa. This page lists all 65 results in six categories, each read on its own World Travel Awards page, explains how the vote and the entry fee work, and links every winner to its own site and to Uncompromised Travel's review where one exists.

Verified 23 September 2026 · worldtravelawards.com award pages, one per category per year · WTA How it works and Enter pages · 2026 Africa results re-read at source

Who has won the World Travel Awards safari categories, year by year?

The World Travel Awards (WTA) has named 65 winners in six safari-company categories since 2011, and seven companies hold 62 of those titles: Abercrombie & Kent, Rhino Africa, Yellow Zebra Safaris, Twiga Tours, Go2Africa, &Beyond and Safari.com. The four categories with “safari company” in the name are below. World's Leading Safari Company was first awarded in 2021. Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company was awarded in 2015 and then every year from 2022. “None listed” means WTA's own history for that category shows no winner that year. The 2026 world titles are decided at WTA's Grand Final and had not been published on 23 September 2026.

Each result was read on its own WTA page, for example World's Leading Safari Company 2025, World's Leading Luxury Safari Company 2025, Africa's Leading Safari Company 2026 and Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company 2026. Every other year uses the same address with the year changed at the end.

Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator and Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator

Two more WTA categories are won by safari specialists almost every year, so they are counted on this page. Abercrombie & Kent won Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator nine years running, 2011 to 2019. Yellow Zebra Safaris, a UK company, has won Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator every year since the category's first result in 2015. Sources: Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator 2026, Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator 2025.

Which safari companies have won the most World Travel Awards?

Abercrombie & Kent has won 17 World Travel Awards safari titles, Rhino Africa 12, Yellow Zebra Safaris 11, Twiga Tours and Go2Africa 7 each, &Beyond 5 and Safari.com 3, while Wilderness, African Bush Camps and Africa Geographic have one each. The count covers the six categories above, from the first result in 2011 to the 2026 Africa results. Company names link to each company's own site.

Three patterns stand out. Long runs are common: Abercrombie & Kent took Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator nine years in a row, Rhino Africa took Africa's Leading Safari Company six years in a row (2013 to 2018), and Yellow Zebra Safaris has never lost the Europe title. The world titles draw on the regional ones, because WTA builds each world shortlist from the winners of the matching regional award plus “vetted and approved WTA commendations”, so the same African companies reappear. And well-known names can be nominated for years without winning. Singita was a nominee for Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company in every year 2022 to 2026. Micato Safaris, a Travel + Leisure World's Best winner in 2021, was nominated in 2022 and 2023 for Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company and in 2024 and 2025 for World's Leading Luxury Safari Company, without a win. Abercrombie & Kent is the reverse case: nominated for Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company in every year 2022 to 2026 without winning it, while winning World's Leading Luxury Safari Company in each of 2022 to 2025. WTA's rules allow a company onto a world shortlist through a commendation as well as a regional win; its site does not say which route applied.

How does the World Travel Awards decide its safari winners?

World Travel Awards winners are chosen by an online vote open to the public and to travel professionals, with a verified professional's vote counted twice, from shortlists made up of vetted entries, the previous year's winner and runners-up, and WTA's own commendations. WTA was founded in 1993 by Graham E. Cooke, still its president, according to its About page. Results are announced at regional galas through the year and the world titles at a Grand Final: the 2025 Grand Final was held in Bahrain on 6 December 2025, and the 2026 Africa gala in Zanzibar, Tanzania, on 28 August 2026.

Is the World Travel Awards a paid award?

Entering is paid: WTA invoices £399 for a country or sub-region award and £499 for a regional award once an entry has passed its vetting, and the fee buys a Digital Nominee Pack that WTA values at £299; the winner is then decided by the weighted vote. WTA's Enter page states that “no fee will be taken from unsuccessful applications”. It does not list a fee for the world categories, and it does not say whether a previous winner or a WTA commendation pays to appear on a shortlist. The nominee pack includes “Vote For Us” web banners, buttons and QR codes, which nominees use to ask clients and contacts for votes.

A commentary on the awards business published by Transparency.Travel names WTA among awards where fees are required and argues that the fees raise questions about credibility and favour larger businesses. WTA's own pages do not respond to that point. Read plainly, a WTA title shows that a company entered, reached a shortlist and drew more weighted votes than its rivals, which is good evidence of reach among its clients and trade contacts. It is not a measurement of a particular trip, and the award pages checked for this article show winners and nominees, not vote totals.

Who won the World Travel Awards for Africa in 2026?

At the World Travel Awards Africa gala in Zanzibar on 28 August 2026, Safari.com won Africa's Leading Safari Company for the third year running, Africa Geographic won Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company, and Rhino Africa won Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator. Africa Geographic's win ended &Beyond's two-year hold on the luxury safari title. It is best known as a conservation publisher, founded in 1991, and sells safaris through its travel arm. Rhino Africa took the luxury tour operator title back from Go2Africa, the 2024 and 2025 winner, which was a nominee again this year.

Several 2026 nominees have reviews on this site: Asilia Africa, ROAR AFRICA, Singita and Wilderness. A nomination is not a result, and WTA does not publish a runner-up order for these categories on the pages checked.

What readers get wrong about the World Travel Awards

The three common misreadings are treating “World's Best” and “World's Leading” as the same award, assuming a world title is older than it is, and reading a regional win as a world win. “World's Best” is Travel + Leisure's reader-survey wording, covered in Travel + Leisure World's Best Safari Outfitters; WTA titles use “Leading”, and no company has won both in the years checked by Uncompromised Travel. World's Leading Safari Company only dates from 2021, so a claim to have held it before then refers to another category, usually World's Leading Luxury Safari Company, which began in 2013. And the Africa and Europe titles are regional: Yellow Zebra Safaris' eleven wins are for Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator, which in 2026 lists eleven nominees, among them Audley Travel, Expert Africa and Mahlatini Luxury Travel.

Three planning rules for reading safari awards

1 · Open the award page yourself. Every WTA result has its own page on worldtravelawards.com with the winner and the nominees. A badge or press release is a claim until that page confirms it. The safari operator verification guide covers the licence and bonding checks that matter more than any trophy.

2 · Read the category name in full. Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator, Africa's Leading Safari Company and World's Leading Luxury Safari Company are separate races with separate fields. Twiga Tours' four world titles and Abercrombie & Kent's six in a row were won in different categories, not against each other.

3 · Use the award to build a shortlist, then compare on price and terms. A vote-based title says a company is well known and well supported. It says nothing about deposit rules or what a night in camp costs, so compare published operator prices and payment terms before paying a deposit.

What changed in 2026

Four results changed the World Travel Awards safari picture between December 2025 and September 2026.

6 December 2025, Grand Final, Bahrain. Twiga Tours won World's Leading Safari Company for a fourth consecutive year, and Abercrombie & Kent won World's Leading Luxury Safari Company for a sixth consecutive year (WTA)).

28 August 2026, Africa gala, Zanzibar. Africa Geographic won Africa's Leading Luxury Safari Company, its first title in the six categories checked, ending &Beyond's run of 2024 and 2025.

28 August 2026. Safari.com won Africa's Leading Safari Company for a third straight year, and Rhino Africa took Africa's Leading Luxury Tour Operator back from Go2Africa (WTA)).

Still pending on 23 September 2026. The 2026 world titles and Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator 2026 had no winner on WTA's site. This page will be updated when they are published.

How to price a shortlisted operator

Price a WTA winner the same way as any other safari company: get its own quote, get a second quote for the same camps and dates, and compare both with published prices. The comparison platform link below is an affiliate link; the operator links are not.