Beyond the Big 5: Africa’s Marketing Renaissance

Each of us approaches life via the unconscious bias of our frame of reference. Successfully navigating life requires constantly making micro-judgments, which lead to decisions based on many factors. Let's imagine that each scenario requiring a decision is a pebble dropping into the pool of our consciousness. As the pebble's impact breaks the still, mirror-like surface, it causes reverberations from its displacement point – each rippling concentric circle represents the many factors impacting our decision-making process: family members, friends, colleagues, and ourselves.

Beyond this initial internal stocktaking exercise, we apply factors beyond our foremost frame of reference – external forces, real or imagined, work stress, peer pressure, and public opinion influenced by mass media, geopolitics and macroeconomics. Implicit bias also impacts our decision-making around travel, feeding into preconceived ideas around cultural stereotyping to familiarity preferences and hospitality expectations.

Passé Phrases: A Hangover of Trophy Hunting

Since the dawn of time, travelling has offered a means to an end. Shepherds navigated rugged terrain, moving their flocks to greener pastures. Traders sailed their feluccas, dhows or caravels, braving wild tides and uncharted waters in search of commerce and brave new horizons. Travel is the bridge that connects us to tourism experiences for leisure, business or a blend of both. 

As transport evolved, people had the means to travel faster and further, living out their interests and hobbies in faraway lands, with an echoing impact on the host communities. 

Africa found itself in the crosshairs of the trophy hunting movement in the 19th century, gaining in popularity in the 20th century – the practice of buying the right to shoot an animal for a fee. "The Big 5" refers to hunting five of Africa's most dangerous animals on foot: elephant, Cape Buffalo, rhinoceros, lion and leopard. The prickly topic, filed under dinner party taboo topics, has a propensity to spark heated debates and spawn uncomfortable, pregnant pauses.

Typically, hunters seek out the most magnificent of their quarry's species, a testament to their superior dominance over nature. The unfortunate animal remains a taxidermied wall ornament, reduced to macabre evidence of its hunter's perceived prestige.

Flipping the Script on Jarring Jargon

Hunting is now widely regarded as an extractive, unsustainable process that degrades a destination's natural capital, eliminating iconic species at an untenable rate, and impacts the gene pool. 

The widespread focus on the Big 5 – a term initially rooted in the colonial-era hunting industry – remains prevalent in mainstream tourism. It's time to reframe this narrative and explore more sustainable and culturally respectful ways to experience the continent's incredible diversity.

Words to Live by

We acknowledge the shift towards more meaningful, conscious travel. Indeed, there's a value mismatch when encountering Africa's iconic wildlife through the lens of responsible tourism, calling on the supply chain to count their words.

Trophy hunting may play a regulated role in tourism's story and, in some places, as part of the broader wildlife management strategy. However, does it make sense to continue to label Africa's keystone species with obsolete terminology that serves to objectify them?

As a mum, a term never far from my lips is, "If we know better, we do better". And such a phrase applies to many of life's problems, including outdated safari slogans.

Asking the Tough Questions

Along with awakening traveller consciousness and wanting to spend their hard-earned tourism money in places run by people who walk the talk of responsible tourism, destinations should embrace this emboldening halo effect, asking themselves a few home truths. For instance, are the customers they attract acting in the best interests of the local people and places? If not, how can they shift the needle on their marketing strategy to attract those who will?

Answering these questions helps guide destination marketers' decisions toward a more balanced narrative that can impact the marketing messaging of its tourism supply chain. When stakeholders adopt the same mindset of prioritising the well-being and livelihoods of local visitor economies ahead of the needs and wants of transient tourists, a new history will follow.

Going Against the Grain

This continent is rich beyond your wildest dreams: natural heritage, mineral wealth and cultural diversity. The tapestry of Africa's stories is sometimes so tightly woven that their beginning and end are almost indistinguishable. All colours and creeds live side-by-side in her ancient lands.

Advice to travellers would be to stop dreaming of Africa in clichéd terms. Recognise your fundamental power within the tourism story. Your voice matters.

Seek travel experiences that build into a new narrative that allows Africans to be the heroes of their story and visitors, the supporting protagonists. Bridge the say-do gap by embarking on conscious holiday experiences that celebrate community-led conservation projects that empower local communities and create sustainable livelihoods in a meaningful way.

When buying trinkets and souvenirs, check that local artisans rather than mass-produced imports produce them. Also, consider the source of the souvenir and whether its provenance has a lasting effect on the natural environment. Removal of these living creatures impacts the area's population of hermit crabs.

Slow, Curious Travel for the Win

Be a part of the traveller demand for Africa's rich cultural and ecological diversity, and don't fall prey to the herd mentality. Instead, broaden your horizons by exploring lesser-known parks and reserves, such as those in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar, focusing on biodiversity rather than the "Big 5". Discover an affinity for other species on land and in the oceans, increasing your awareness of ecosystem balance.

Extend your stay, embarking on a slow safari and putting less pressure on the eco-tourism industry to magick sightings of the iconic megafauna (the term "Ferrari Safari" comes to mind). Instead, take the time to discover the "Shy 5" and "Ugly 5" and their fascinating stories.

Slowing down the pace allows the experience to percolate, making time and space for a deeper connection with Africa's people, fascinating cultures and beautiful, diverse landscapes. Travel begets travel, and once you take up the explorer's mantle, it is a fool's game to try to slake your thirst for new experiences. The trick is deciding where to go, with whom and when.