Wilderness introduces new look, promises more local engagement
Sharon Mathala | Tuesday November 22, 2022 06:00
After 40 years as a tourism player, Wilderness Safaris will now just be called Wilderness. The re-branding comes at a time when the company is just recovering from the COVID-19 effects.
Speaking during the launch, Okavango Wilderness Safaris Board Chair Kabelo Binns said through the new brand they will be exploring some exciting developments where Wilderness would be able to effect citizen participation in meaningful investments and initiatives from lodge ownership to marketing and sales in associated properties.
"As we introduce our new brand, we want to be clearly recognised as a stronger more engaging and even more transparent business, understanding that collaboration and shared learnings are more sustainable and valuable than the competition," he said.
Binns further added that the rebranding comes with exciting developments further afoot, from their growing sales office locally to take more bookings directly from upstairs to working on new camps.
“Going forward, we will listen more, engage more, network more, and share more. Our new brand wholly reflects this and sets us up for so much more,” Binns said.
Currently, Wilderness operated in eight African countries with sales offices in the United States of America, United Kingdom, European Union, South Africa, and Botswana and has over 3,500 employees.
“Of those, 1,000 are in Botswana alone, under your hosts tonight as the Botswana business, being Okavango Wilderness Safaris. We are very proud of our Botswana heritage and the privilege we have to manage, market and operate a combined property portfolio of 22 camps in Botswana today and 38 others spread across Africa, bringing the group’s total camp to count to 60 to date. We have great ambitions as we unveil our new global brand positioning, which we will talk about shortly, you will see that growth is very much part of our DNA. I hope you will agree with us that our story is a long way from being finished as we celebrate 40 years soon and infinite potential further,” Binns highlighted.
For his part Chief Risk and Corporate Affairs Officer at Wilderness Group, Derek De La Harpe said: “As we now all embrace the return to offices and the return of enjoyable gatherings such as this, we are reminded of the importance of relationships, of engaging, networking, interacting, sharing, laughing, and more, of course, this opportunity to gather coincided with the big rebranding news of this week and an exciting new chapter for Wilderness.”