PHOTO: The African safari regions are pastoral and serene, and more remote from Ebola-affected West Africa than is Europe. (Photo by David Cogswell)
Last July, business was running smoothly for Anastasia's Africa. New inquiries and bookings were coming in briskly. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa had been going on since early in the year, but the panic in the U.S. had not yet ignited.
The World Health Organization had reported the outbreak in Guinea in March. The disease soon spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone and the WHO called it the worst outbreak of the disease ever.
On Aug. 8, the WHO declared the epidemic an international public health emergency and called on the world community to help the affected countries prevent further spread of the disease. By late August Ebola had spread to Nigeria and one case was reported in Senegal.
"In mid-July or even later it was still really rare that people were even bringing it up," said Karin Jones, managing director of Anastasia's Africa. "It wasn't a problem. We had one client say, 'We're not going to do it this year. We'll do it another year.' We weren't having any issues."
The company started countering fear by selling cancel-at-any-time insurance and educating people about the size of Africa, and the remoteness of the safari areas from the areas affected by Ebola.
"That made people feel comfortable," said Jones. "They were fine."
For a while. Then on Sept. 30, the imaginary barrier between Africa and the U.S. was breached when a man in Dallas came down with the disease after contracting it in Liberia.
"As of two weeks ago, suddenly we saw the inquiries drop off drastically," said Jones. "Some of our vendors would make the rounds and see me and African Travel and Great Safaris and Cox & Kings and everyone here in L.A., and we started to hear from everybody: This company's letting six people go and this other company is doing this and that."
Suddenly the vulnerability of the safari sector was laid bare.
Panic: An Elusive Enemy
Anastasia's Africa is hunkering down, preparing to face a business drought no one can predict the extent of.
"We are very lean and mean, thank goodness," said Jones. "I don't have a huge nut. We're not going to need to do cuts. We've got a lot of business on the books for 2015. We actually have zero cancellations, but I may be one of the few because I've talked to other tour operators and people are getting cancellations."
"So far so good" is not a very reassuring motto for proceeding through a crisis, but Africa's safari operators have few options. They are caught in the maelstrom of panic by virtue of operating on the same continent where Ebola emerged.
"We definitely had people who were on the verge of booking who said, 'We're just not going to go. We're just not doing it. We're going to wait a year.' So far we're not getting cancellations, but our inquiries are very quiet. We're still having them. We have clients who are in the process of booking and we are closing sales."
Jones favors a 30-day quarantine of people traveling from the affected countries to the U.S.
"It's very drastic," she said, "But drastic times require drastic measures. That's a 30-day quarantine in those countries. As they are leaving they would go into that monitoring to make sure they don't have it. I'm talking about keeping it out of the U.S.A. The whole thing with it coming into the U.S.A. is why the panic has reached epic proportions, in my opinion. It wasn't until this guy came over here and got the disease in the U.S. that everything went wild. It was that that basically sealed it."
The Geography Challenge Again
So once again the African travel industry falls victim to guilt by association that comes from the primitive conception of geography in mainstream America.
"We've had this for years," said Jones. "I've been doing this for so long and dealing with the people not understanding the size of the continent, and thinking it's all one country."
African tour operators are trying to combat the panic, but have little power to stand up against the media blitz of the 24-hour news stations that have people riveted in fear, waiting for the next report. Tour operators are reluctantly accepting their fate as the current targets of the media panic roulette.
"We have 24/7 news channels and general media blasting away about Ebola as the biggest threat to America," said Dave Herbert, chief experience officer of Great Safaris. "This paranoia cannot be contested by the travel industry at present. The drive to the domestic airport is still the most dangerous part of an overseas vacation. The panic fueled by media will subside in due course, but has played havoc in the meantime."
Fortunately for safari operators, more experienced travelers are less subject to panic. Abercrombie & Kent reports little damage at present.
"While we have had a few guests postpone their safaris until a later date, overall there has not been a significant impact on bookings to East or Southern Africa," said Pamela Lassers, director of media relations for A&K. "A&K guests tend to be frequent international travelers who realize that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is thousands of miles from safari destinations in East and Southern Africa."
Words for the Wise
Abercrombie & Kent is countering panic with rationality, reassuring clients with a list of relevant facts:
1. The continent of Africa is larger than the U.S., China, India, Europe and Japan combined.
2. Africa is not one country but 54 independent nations with strict customs controls. Most have restricted entry to travelers that visited affected West African countries.
3. The main safari destinations are in East and Southern Africa, which is farther away from the affected countries in West Africa than parts of Europe and South America.
4. There have been no cases of Ebola in Southern or East Africa, which includes South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
In regard to Kenya, A&K's home and the center of its safari operations, the company reminds its clients that:
1. Kenya remains Ebola free and no single case of Ebola has been recorded in the country.
2. The affected countries are in the extreme western part of the African continent, thousands of kilometers from Kenya. Geographically, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are closer to Madrid, Paris and London than they are to Kenya.
3. Kenya Airways flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone remain suspended as a measure to prevent the spread of Ebola. In addition, restrictions on entry into Kenya for those who have passed through Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are still in place.
4. Visitors to Kenya are not at any risk of contracting Ebola and there is no reason for visitors to cancel or postpone their travel plans.
Here are some additional factoids for consideration.
Dakar, Senegal, in the affected area, is closer to New York (3,818 miles) than it is to Nairobi (3,865 miles), Johannesburg (4,159 miles) or Cape Town (4,100 miles).
Within Africa, Ebola has been confined to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. Outside of Africa, cases have now been reported in the U.S., Spain and Germany.
According to the Centers for Disease Control:
Ebola is not transmitted through casual contact, air, water, food grown or legally purchased in the U.S.
Ebola is spread through the body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from Ebola. Body fluids include blood, vomit, urine, feces, sweat, semen, spit, etc. It can also be spread through objects contaminated with the virus, such as needles and other medical equipment, by the body fluids of infected animals or infected meat.
Ebola can only be spread after symptoms appear, which happens from two to 21 days after exposure. You can only be infected by someone who visibly exhibits the symptoms. The symptoms are fever, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, unexplained bleeding or bruising or muscle pain.
According to Dan Austin, president of Austin Adventures, "In my humble opinion there are better odds for winning the lottery than getting Ebola. Reading up on it, the average traveler needs to relax."
"These fears will abate once we get beyond the current 'breaking news' syndrome," said Bob Drumm, president of Alexander + Roberts.
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