Words by Clinton Els and Martin Wiest
Luxury travel is just not what it used to be. It’s changed – into something much more meaningful.
Of course, luxury travel still involves exclusivity, luxurious comfort, personalised service and enhanced privacy options. Well-heeled travellers still want to fly first or business class, and they still want five-star accommodations and service. But they also want so much more than that and for Africa to compete on the world stage, we must provide it to them.
More and more travellers are coming to Africa than ever before. UN Tourism’s World Tourism Barometer shows that 81-million international visitors, an 8% increase on the 2024 total, landed in Africa in 2025. This exceeded pre-pandemic traveller numbers by an impressive 16%, a clear indicator that Africa is becoming a destination of choice.
World Tourism Barometer data also shows that in 2023, tourism contributed 6.8 per cent of African GDP, up from 5.9 per cent the previous year, and accounts for millions of jobs across the continent.
According to Market Data Forecast’s 2025 Africa Travel Market Report, the continent’s travel sector was worth just over US$25.7-billion in 2024, with steady projected growth of around 5 per cent per annum through to 2034.
Significantly, high-end safari tourism is expanding even more rapidly: Grand View Research estimated the Southern Africa safari tourism segment alone at US$13.2-billion in 2024, and predicted that this could more than double by 2033 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4 per cent.
That is spectacular growth projection, which cannot be explained simply by increases in the numbers of people who can afford luxury travel. So what is driving this promise?
We’re seeing several exciting trends in the luxury travel sector coming to the fore, including:
Hyper-personalisation: More and more, travellers expect highly customised journeys; they simply do not want pro forma itineraries with predictable, been-there destinations and done-that activities. Rather, they want to dictate their own, one-of-a-kind travel experience, and they want to come back with stories to tell
Purposeful, slow travel: There’s a shift from rushed sightseeing to slow-paced, immersive experiences that connect travellers with local cultures and the environment. It’s all about quality, not quantity
Holistic wellness: No longer just a spa amenity, wellness is becoming a core travel motivator. Luxury travellers want a journey that promotes health, happiness and longevity
Sustainable, ethical luxury: Affluent travellers are prioritising eco-conscious resorts, biophilic (nature-integrating) design, and destinations that actively support environmental and cultural preservation. They want to add value to the communities they encounter, and can do this through staying in sustainable accommodation, supporting job creation, and participating in social and environmental projects
Exclusive access and hidden gems: There is increasing demand for lesser-known destinations, avoiding crowds, and securing private access to renowned sites, cultural experiences or performances
In short, luxury travellers are seeking memorable, one-of-a-kind experiences. They don’t just want to say that they went on a five-star trip to such-and-such a place; they want to be able to tell vivid stories about the singular, off-the-beaten-track adventure they had – the kind that not everyone, even other luxury travellers, gets to enjoy.
The travel brand we have just launched, Your Africa, is geared towards exactly this segment, in alignment with these trends – providing international tourists with memorable, one-of-a-kind experiences. We believe that Africa holds great potential for growth in luxury travel.
As tourist arrivals handsomely surpass pre-Covid levels all over the continent, African countries are actively improving infrastructure, promoting traditional drawcards such as safaris, beach destinations and cultural heritage, and embracing those all-important niche trends. And the continent is replete with possibilities when it comes to those nowhere-else travel experiences that luxury travellers hanker after.
For example, imagine astro-tourism in Namibia’s southern Namib Desert, which boasts some of the darkest places in the world – perfect for lying back and really being blown away by the Milky Way, which cannot be fully viewed in the Northern Hemisphere. Or swimming on the very edge of the awe-inspiring Victoria Falls, sleeping out in the open on Botswana’s vast Makgadikgadi Pans, being completely integrated into nature on a walking safari in Zambia, or taking part in turtle conservation in Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa.
Virtually nowhere else in the world are these kinds of activities even possible. And this is not to even speak of all the more famous, but equally fabulous, African experiences: Big Five game viewing, witnessing the Great Migration, encountering rare and endangered species such as the dugong or African wild dog, relaxing on tropical beaches in the Seychelles, Mauritius or Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago, and many more.
While more mature markets such as Europe struggle with overtourism, and even anti-visitor pushback from local populations, African destinations have no such issues. Instead, tourism is seen as a driver of job creation, economic growth and development. Not even conflict, previously a major issue in some parts of the continent, stands in the way of travel in Africa like it currently would in the Middle East or parts of Eastern Europe, for example.
The jewel in the crown of African tourism is, of course, luxury travel. It generates significantly higher average spend per visitor than the norm and its high-value, low-impact nature means that destinations can derive maximum benefit with minimal downside.
However, key to providing travellers with the authentic African adventures they crave is knowing Africa inside and out. Anyone can google things to do in Africa, but knowing what is truly special, truly rare and precious (as opposed to simply expensive), takes deep expertise and indigenous knowledge.
That is the difference between selling an African itinerary, which the trends tell us luxury travellers no longer want, and curating a personal, unforgettable African story – which they do.
