How to Quote an East African Safari Without Losing Margin

Most margin loss on a Kenyan or Tanzanian safari quote has nothing to do with mispricing the lodges. It comes from four things: costs that are charged on a different basis to the rest of the quote, VAT that may or may not already be in the published figure, concession fees on in-park accommodation that get forgotten, and vehicle costs divided by the wrong number of people. Each one is small. Together they are the difference between a healthy quote and one you end up absorbing.

This is a guide to the arithmetic, written for the person building the quote rather than the traveller reading it. Every figure below is illustrative and dated. Park fees change, and the only figures you should quote from are the current ones from the authority itself.

The four cost bases in a single safari quote

A safari quote is not one list of prices. It is at least four lists, each charged on a different basis, added together at the end. This is the root of most quoting errors, because a spreadsheet column that works for one basis silently breaks for another.

Per person, per 24 hours

Park entry and conservation fees. In Tanzania these are set by TANAPA for the national parks, and separately by the NCAA for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In Kenya, KWS sets fees for the national parks, but the Maasai Mara National Reserve is set by Narok County Government, and the Mara Triangle is administered separately again by the Mara Conservancy.

The critical detail is 24 hours, not calendar days. A party entering at 2pm and leaving at 4pm two days later has crossed into a third 24-hour period. If you quote by nights, you will under-collect.

Per person, per night

Concession fees, charged when your clients sleep at a lodge or camp inside a park boundary, on top of the daily entry fee. This is the line most often missed entirely, because it does not appear at the gate and it is not always itemised on the lodge's own rate sheet. Ask every in-park property directly whether its rate includes the concession fee, and get the answer in writing.

Per vehicle

Vehicle entry fees, which in Tanzania are banded by vehicle tare weight and differ for locally registered versus foreign-registered vehicles. The Ngorongoro Crater Service Fee is also charged per vehicle, per descent, not per person.

These are the lines that break a per-person spreadsheet. A per-vehicle cost divided by headcount produces a different per-person figure every time group size changes, which means a quote built for two and then adjusted to four is wrong unless you rebuild it.

Per booking

Transfers, domestic flights, single supplements, permits bought once for the party. Fixed regardless of how many people travel, so they behave like vehicle costs when the group size moves.

VAT is the single biggest source of quote inconsistency

If two operators quote the same itinerary and the park fee lines differ by roughly a fifth, VAT is almost always the reason. Tanzania applies 18% VAT, and TANAPA's own published tariff states conservation and vehicle fees exclusive of it. Plenty of third-party sources then republish the same fee with VAT already added, without saying so.

You can spot it in the numbers. A fee published as $70 before VAT appears elsewhere as $82.60. One published at $60 appears as $70.80. At the lower tier, $50 becomes $59 and $40 becomes $47.20. Each pair is the same fee, quoted two different ways.

Two rules follow. First, decide once whether your internal rate sheet holds fees inclusive or exclusive of VAT and never mix the two. Second, when a supplier or a website gives you a fee, ask which one it is rather than assuming. A fifth of your park fee line is usually more than your margin on the booking.

Rack, nett STO and where your margin actually sits

Lodge rates work differently from park fees, and it is worth being precise about the language because the words get used loosely.

A rack rate is the published rate, what a member of the public would pay. An STO or nett rate is the reduced rate the property gives you as an operator. The gap between them is your margin. It is not a commission paid to you on top of what the client pays, and treating it as though it were is how operators end up quoting a trip that makes nothing.

Nett rates are also commonly tiered by the volume you put through a property, often measured in bed nights per month, with the discount widening as volume rises. If you are close to a threshold, the rate you are quoting may not be the rate you will be entitled to by the time the booking lands, in either direction.

Park fees have no margin in them at all. They are a fixed cost floor, identical whichever operator books, so every cent of error there comes straight out of your own margin rather than being absorbed somewhere else in the quote.

What changes each year, and when

Tanzania's fee cycle runs with the financial year, with changes taking effect on 1 July. Increases have not always arrived with much notice, and there have been long stretches where no new schedule was announced at all, so a quote written in May for travel in August is exposed.

Kenya's Maasai Mara moves on its own schedule entirely, set by Narok County rather than KWS, and it has recently been operating a two-season structure with a substantial gap between the low and high season non-resident rate. Conservancies surrounding the reserve set their own fees again, separately from both.

Practical consequences for a quote:

• Put a validity date on every quote you send, and a line saying park fees are subject to change by the authority.

• For travel that crosses a fee-change date, either quote at the expected new rate or state plainly that the fee will be re-confirmed. Absorbing an increase on a trip booked a year out is a real and avoidable loss.

• Payment mechanics have changed too. Tanzanian park fees now go through the government electronic payment gateway with a control number rather than cash at the gate, and several Kenyan gates are cashless. Neither affects the price, but both affect how far ahead you need to have the money in place.

A worked example

A three-day Serengeti stay with two nights in-park and one Ngorongoro Crater descent, for two non-resident adults in a private, locally registered vehicle. The figures below are illustrative, before you substitute current ones.

Assumptions: conservation fee $70 per adult per 24 hours, concession fee $60 per person per night, vehicle entry $40 per day, Crater Service Fee $295 per vehicle per descent, 18% VAT applied to the TANAPA lines.

The same itinerary costs $109 per person less at four travellers than at two, and not one lodge rate changed. The entire difference comes from the two per-vehicle lines being shared across more people.

This is why a quote cannot be rebuilt by changing the headcount at the bottom of a spreadsheet. Some lines scale with people, some do not, and the ones that do not are the ones that decide whether a small-party quote is profitable.

Should park fees be itemised on the client quote?

There is a genuine argument both ways.

Itemising them builds trust and explains a number that often shocks first-time safari clients. It also makes it obvious that the fees are government-set rather than your markup, which is useful when a client compares your quote against a cheaper one that has excluded them.

Bundling them into a single per-person rate is simpler to read, and it keeps your nett rates harder to reverse-engineer. If a client can see the park fee and the total, the rest of your cost structure becomes easier to infer than you might like.

A reasonable middle position: show park fees as one combined line rather than park by park, state clearly that they are set by the authority and subject to change, and keep the lodge lines bundled.

Frequently asked questions

Do Tanzanian park fees include VAT?

TANAPA's published tariff states conservation and vehicle fees exclusive of VAT, which is currently 18%. Many third-party sources quote the same fees with VAT already added, which is why published figures appear to disagree. Always confirm which basis a figure is on before it goes into a quote.

How do I work out the vehicle fee on a safari quote?

Tanzanian vehicle entry fees are banded by the vehicle's tare weight, with different rates for locally registered and foreign-registered vehicles, so the fee depends on which vehicle you are actually using rather than on the itinerary. It is charged per vehicle per day, not per person, so it must stay as its own line and be spread across the party at the end.

What is the difference between a conservation fee and a concession fee?

The conservation or entry fee is charged per person for each 24-hour period inside the park. The concession fee is charged per person per night when your clients sleep at a property inside the park boundary. They are separate charges and both apply on an in-park stay.

How often do park fees change?

Tanzania's changes take effect on 1 July, though there have been years with no change at all. Kenya's Maasai Mara is set by Narok County on its own cycle and has recently used a two-season structure. Conservancy fees are set independently again. Check before quoting anything more than a few months out.

Should I build quotes in a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet handles one cost basis well. It handles four badly, because the formula that correctly splits a per-person fee is the wrong formula for a per-vehicle one, and nothing warns you when the two get mixed.

If you are spending more time checking your own arithmetic than building the itinerary, that is the signal to move your rates somewhere that keeps the bases separate. WildPlanner holds whatever rate lines you give it, per person or per vehicle, with rack and nett tracked on each line so your margin is visible while you build rather than worked out afterwards. It does not ship a park fee database, so the fees themselves still come from you, checked against the authority. Fourteen-day free trial, no credit card required.