Friday, August 23, 2024 Saruni Basecamp, a luxury safari brand in Kenya , combines ethical tourism with community-based conservation, offering immersive cultural and wildlife experiences. Saruni Basecamp marks the launch of a new luxury safari brand in Kenya, centered on conservation and community engagement. This venture emerges from the acquisition of Saruni, a high-end safari company with lodges in the Masai Mara and Samburu, by Basecamp Explorer, a well-established hospitality group with properties in the Masai Mara.
This rebranding effort is driven by a unified vision to enhance and promote a community conservancy model for tourism in East Africa, focusing on sustainable practices and local empowerment. Saruni Basecamp has grown into a distinguished portfolio of 12 pioneering and ethically driven safari lodges and camps, all deeply rooted in community-based conservation and tourism. This collection showcases the best of Kenya, offering exclusive Big Five game viewing, including unique experiences like night drives, off-roading adventures, and family-friendly safari activities.
Guests can also participate in impactful initiatives, such as tree planting, supporting fair-trade women’s jewelry cooperatives, and visiting a wildlife and Maasai education center. Notably, President Barack and Michelle Obama once stayed at the iconic Basecamp Masai Mara, where a grove of native Kenyan trees now stands in their honor. In Samburu, guests can immerse themselves in an extraordinary experience of tracking rhinos on foot at Sera Conservancy, home to 25 rhinos—both Eastern White and Black—marking a significant success in rhino conservation.
Jeremiah Mutisya, CEO of Saruni Basecamp commented on the acquisition of Saruni properties by Basecamp Explorer. “Our vision at Saruni Basecamp is to create a lasting, positive impact on people and the planet. To achieve this, we’ve developed a sustainable community model that we are now scaling through our community conservancies.
We have uniquely balanced our role as both a non-profit foundation and a for-profit safari business, believing these goals are intrinsically linked. Our foundation’s mission is to safeguard wildlife corridors for wildlife to thrive, while also uplifting local communities through employment and land leases and engaging in regenerative practices that enhance the ecosystem. On the business side, our safari operations are designed to offer world-class experiences that celebrate the natural and cultural richness of the Samburu and Masai Mara.
By choosing to stay in our boutique camps and lodges, our guests not only enjoy intimate encounters with local communities, wildlife and breathtaking landscapes but also contribute directly to our conservation and community development goals. With Saruni properties now part of our portfolio and more in the pipeline, we’re excited to expand our impact on both the land and the communities that sustain it.” Saruni Basecamp is proud to have a fully Kenyan management team at its corporate headquarters and a remarkable 90% of its camp staff are recruited from the local rural tribal communities surrounding the camps.
This commitment to hiring locally ensures that guests experience an authentic connection to the Maasai or Samburu cultures as soon as they arrive, with numerous cultural activities and excursions available throughout the collection. Education is a key focus for Saruni Basecamp, as they aim to provide guests with an immersive cultural and ecological experience that leaves a lasting impact, one they can carry with them long after their visit..
