What does duty of care look like for an East Africa programme?

What we tell planners

Incentive houses are liable in the imagination of their client even when the DMC holds the ground risk. We share vehicle standards, guide qualifications, night-driving rules, and which activities are optional — in Tanzania and Kenya safari vehicles, on Rwanda and Uganda gorilla days, on Ethiopian highland roads, and in Zanzibar, Seychelles and Mauritius coaches and boats.

Flying doctors / AMREF-style evacuation is the right tool on many safari circuits. Lodge medical kits and the nearest suitable hospital are listed per destination: Nairobi and Addis have deep hospital networks; crater camps, Bwindi, Lalibela and outer-island Seychelles are a different response time. Gorilla days have porter and rescue protocols. Simien walks have altitude and fitness gates. Boats in Zanzibar, Seychelles and Mauritius have skipper certificates and a second vessel when we put 40 people on the water.

We keep a rooming list with dietary, mobility, emergency contacts and, for Ethiopia, an altitude honesty field. If a guest refuses to share health notes, we still need a next-of-kin. Northern historic-circuit itineraries in Ethiopia are designed around current travel advisories; we will change routing rather than improvise through an unsafe week.

Political and weather clauses are boring until they are not. Mauritius cyclone season (roughly November–April), Seychelles inter-island wind and boat delays, Zanzibar tides, and election calendars in the countries we operate appear in the risk paragraph. Helicopters in Seychelles are a weather buffer, not a toy. The operations annex is written before the welcome letter.