Episode #143: Purvi Shah
Head of Sustainability and Senior Travel Planner
Kampur Travel Diaries | Africa
Guest Bio
Purvi Shah is the Head of Sustainability and a Senior Travel Planner at Kampur Travel Diaries, where she helps travelers uncover the soul of Africa through thoughtfully curated safari experiences. Born and raised in Kenya, Purvi’s love for travel was sparked by childhood road trips and wildlife encounters with her family — memories that include watching elephants gather around a waterhole in the Aberdare Mountains. While she explored continents far and wide during her university years, it was Africa that always called her home. Today, she combines her deep local roots and formal training as a tour consultant to design safaris that are rich in detail, cultural understanding, and purpose.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Purvi about her lifelong connection to Kenya, her heritage as a Kenyan of Indian descent, and how those influences shaped her journey into sustainable travel planning. Drawing from her childhood experiences in Nairobi and beyond, she shares how early exposure to wildlife instilled both wonder and a sense of responsibility.
Purvi dives into the role of trust and local expertise in crafting transformative safaris — not just for the traveler, but also for the communities and ecosystems they impact. She and Jason explore how tourism in Kenya can become more inclusive and accessible, the often-overlooked privilege of proximity to wildlife, and why sustainability must go beyond conservation to include cultural and economic development. With warmth and clarity, Purvi offers a compelling vision for travel that’s rooted in connection, understanding, and long-term impact.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Meaningful conversations are key to bridging cultures and creating a smaller, more connected world
- ✓ Kampur Travel Diaries designs bespoke safaris that support local communities and conservation efforts
- ✓ Purvi’s upbringing near Mount Kenya deeply shaped her relationship with nature and wildlife
- ✓ Experiencing Kenya’s national parks as a local highlighted disparities in access and privilege
- ✓ Travelers often face information overload when researching safaris — local insight helps cut through the noise
- ✓ Authentic experiences require trust between planners, guides, and guests
- ✓ High costs often exclude Kenyan locals from enjoying their own wildlife heritage
- ✓ Hospitality is a cornerstone of Kenyan culture and plays a big role in the travel experience
- ✓ Sustainable tourism should balance ecological preservation with economic opportunity for host communities
What You’ll Find on Kampur Travel Diaries
- Bespoke safari itineraries rooted in local expertise
- Conservation-focused travel that benefits wildlife and communities
- Personalized planning with attention to the smallest details
- Cultural immersion opportunities across Africa
- A commitment to sustainable, ethical travel practices
- Support for community-led tourism initiatives
Learn more about Kampur Travel Diaries | Africa and connect with Purvi at:
https://kampurtraveldiaries.com/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:01.258)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Happy to have each and every one of you back here today and super excited to have my guest with me today. We’ve got Purvi Shah here with us. She is the head of sustainability and the senior travel planner for Kampur Travel Diaries. Purvi, nice to have you on the show. Happy to see you again.
Purvi Shah (00:24.344)
Hi Jason, thanks for having me on. I really love the concept of this big world made small and I think that big world is only made small by more conversations and connections. So I’m looking forward to this.
Jason Elkins (00:39.584)
love that you see it that way because that was definitely my intention. So to bring people together and it’s been a lot of fun. We’re coming up on two years of the show now. Had a lot of amazing conversations with people from around the world and super excited to do the same with you. I mean, you and I have spoke once. We had a short conversation, but I was fascinated by with what you’re doing that. Well, we need to come back and record it so other people can hear it. And it’ll be much more in depth this time because
Purvi Shah (00:59.629)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (01:08.684)
As I mentioned to you on our first calls, this is behind the scenes for anybody that’s listening. We usually do a first kind of introduction call, but I always tell my guests, I said, don’t tell me anything now. I’m not gonna ask you, I already know you’re interesting. Don’t tell me too much because I don’t wanna know the answers to the questions. So we’re gonna learn a lot today. I’m gonna learn a lot today. So, Purvi, before we jump in, where are you physically located right now?
Purvi Shah (01:31.778)
Me.
Purvi Shah (01:35.726)
So I’m in Nairobi in Kenya in East Africa. That’s where is home and that’s where we live and that’s where I’ve grown up.
Jason Elkins (01:43.734)
Very, very cool. We’re going to dig into that pretty, pretty big, big time, deep, whatever, whatever you want to call it. We’re going to hear your whole life story. Maybe not every detail, but before we do that, I think our listeners may be interested. You know, I mentioned the name of the company, Campur Travel Diaries, and let’s give them kind of the 30, 60 second elevator pitch. We don’t need the whole company history because we’ll probably get into that. But what does Campur Travel Diaries do?
Purvi Shah (02:13.41)
We are a boutique owner managed company based in Nairobi and we organize
customized bespoke safaris and trips for our guests. And we offer trips in 11 countries around Africa and the Middle East. And we only do Africa and only Jordan in the Middle East. And basically all our trips are led by local guides. And secondly, when you travel with us, part of the proceeds of the trip go towards our programs that we have in another
number of areas including education, conservation, reforestation, women empowerment and working with other conservation organizations to help fund some of their programs.
Jason Elkins (03:05.142)
That’s wonderful. And that’s one of the things that attracted my attention towards you actually was because I did a little research early on and I saw that you were really doing things. wasn’t just, give, you know, just a flat. We give X percent of our profits to one organization. We just transfer the money. You’re, is it much more involved and much deeper than that. And I really thought that was pretty cool. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna get into that. So let’s, let’s do this. We’re gonna go back to the beginning or back.
Purvi Shah (03:10.222)
Thank
Purvi Shah (03:27.427)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (03:33.92)
close to the beginning for you as a person. And then we’re going to work our way back up to kind of where you are now. tell me your accent. Your accent to me doesn’t sound East African. It definitely doesn’t sound like my accent. So where did this all start for you?
Purvi Shah (03:41.944)
Sounds good.
Purvi Shah (03:53.816)
So I am.
On, I’m like a third or fourth generation Kenyan. I say third or fourth because on my dad’s side, mean, Kenya was a British colony. India was a British colony. So there was a lot of mass migration from India to Kenya, especially initially when they started building the railway in Kenya. And this is in the late 1800s, early 1900s. So on my dad’s side, my grandfather moved from India to Kenya.
not to build the railway, but at the time we are, or my ancestors are from a part of India called Gujarat. And at that time there was quite a bad drought in Gujarat and, you know, living conditions were very tough. So a lot of families were sending their young boys.
to Kenya or to East Africa to try and start making a life for themselves there. So there was a lot of people who came in these little ships and dows. So on my dad’s side, my grandfather moved. And on my mom’s side, her grandfather moved. So my great grandfather moved from India to Kenya. And that’s how our families over the years got established there. So if anyone asks me, like my accent is probably
a mixture of British, American, Indian, Kenyan, everything. It’s quite a unique accent. It’s quite interesting you asked about that, Jason, because when I go to the UK, people say I sound American. When I’m in the US, people say I sound British. And I’m like, actually, I think I just have my own unique accent. And I think it’s also being picked up from the teachers we had at school, probably from our parents’ accents.
Purvi Shah (05:45.654)
It’s kind of a unique mishmash. That’s the best way I can describe it.
Jason Elkins (05:50.54)
Okay, so be honest with me. I’m a big boy, I’ve got a thick skin. When I say you were clearly born in East Africa, is that correct? Is that a correct statement? Yep. So you’re East African. So when someone like me says, you don’t sound East African, what goes on internally? And again, like I said, be honest.
Purvi Shah (06:01.814)
Yes, yes, perfect.
Purvi Shah (06:13.623)
So the funny thing is this is something that we’ve lived with all the time because as much as the world is global, as much as the world is global, we are still set in our ways of.
people we expect to be from certain parts of the world. You see a brown face, you immediately think India, Asia, Sri Lanka. You see a white face, you think the Western world, but that’s not how it works anymore, right? There’s been mass migration throughout the world. And it’s just funny that, to me, I guess it’s just funny that we still have these stereotypes that exist as much as the world is now global. know, people have…
Jason Elkins (06:52.971)
No, I.
Yeah, I agree. And I hear it completely. I’m one of those people that is traveling constantly. I’ve been around enough to know that it looks how you look or sound doesn’t really tell the whole story. I’ve actually had some embarrassing situations where, know, in Latin America, for example, I’ve walked up to people that look like me and just assume like, hey,
Purvi Shah (06:56.459)
Yeah, so that’s.
Jason Elkins (07:21.1)
Where are you from? I’m from Arizona. And I’d expect them to say, Oh, I’m from Ohio. I’m from California. And they’re like, I’m from Quito, you know, in Spanish or what, you know, and I’m like, Oh, okay. I guess I got that one wrong. And it took a while to kind of figure that out. But I also on the podcast use it as a little bit of a conversation starter because I can obviously you and I probably did not grow up in the same place with the same teachers and the same parents and all that stuff. So it just sounds different. So
Purvi Shah (07:30.111)
Yes.
Purvi Shah (07:34.913)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (07:51.27)
All right, so were you born in Nairobi then or where in Kenya?
Purvi Shah (07:51.629)
Yes.
Purvi Shah (07:57.12)
Yes, so I mean like in terms of
Technically, yes, I was born in Nairobi, but my family lived in a smaller town on the foothills of Mount Kenya. It’s a town called Nyeri. I think actually, honestly, think being brought up there and also I think my parents, as much as they probably don’t think they’re explorers, are explorers, do love traveling. And we lived in a place where every day from the window I would see Mount Kenya and
part of our growing up, we had a national park not far from where we lived called the Aberdeers. And part of our growing up, part of most of my memories are going to the Aberdeers, like my dad would come home from work and then we would drive there for four o’clock, five o’clock tea and watch the elephants at this lodge there, you know, at the water hole. And as a child, you think that’s normal. I did not realize it’s not a normal.
thing for most people in the world. I honestly only realized that going on safari is not a normal thing for most people when I was working in the UK. And so I’m saying this is in like my twenties that I thought that I found out and understood because I did. I had a had a colleague who was going to Kenya on safari at that time. And that’s when I started hearing phrases.
is like, yeah, this is a trip of a lifetime. We have saved for so many years to go on this trip. And I was like thinking, oh, I used to do this all. This is like normal for us. That’s when you started seeing actually there’s a different perspective and you start understanding the privilege that you were brought up with to be able to experience all this.
Jason Elkins (09:37.856)
You
Jason Elkins (09:55.468)
Do you think that that experience has helped you become a I guess, operator, a better operator for your clients? Because you’ve got, under, because here’s the thing, if you fully appreciate that this is a new experience for them, something that they’ve saved a long time for, something they’re super excited about, then you can maybe approach the whole thing a little differently than if you’re, maybe you’ve never left.
Kenya and you grew up around all these things so you just kind of take it for granted to a certain extent and somebody shows up and says my gosh my gosh we gotta go see the elephants and if you just say you know why they’ll be there tomorrow we can take our time let’s go look at this first and look at that first I suspect it’s played a huge role in what you do
Purvi Shah (10:45.719)
So Jason, interestingly enough, I think both parts have played a huge role. knowing the privilege that I grew up with. But secondly, as part of that privilege, I never stopped being in awe of the wildlife. So we have done over hundreds of safaris, you know, it’s just, and yet every time I’m like a little child again.
You know, I, yes, I, the one thing I do dream of and wish off is I’ll never, that it’s the only one thing I’ll never be able to experience again that first joy of someone seeing, even if it’s their first Impala or their first gazelle, but it’s just, it’s just a really wow moment. So that is one thing I’m like, wow, I’ll never have that again. But then I realized that my,
Jason Elkins (11:14.39)
Okay.
Purvi Shah (11:41.739)
joy of being in the wild and of seeing the wildlife is just inherent. And as much as I’ve always seen it, I also know that for someone to see it and experience it for the first time, it’s something very difficult to put into words. Like even when we’re talking to guests, even when we’re explaining to them at
in the background, I know I can give them all the information, but that feeling that they’re going to have of just utter amazement is something that until they get there, I can’t describe however hard I try. what has helped is so knowing that and knowing that it’s their first time. Yes, because it helps us actually because you know the problem
One of the big problems, it’s a good thing and it makes it difficult, is information overload from the internet. People read a lot of things, but then they read, even then I found that with Kenya, things that we are so aware of, not only in Kenya, but East Africa, Southern Africa, the amount of information which is available online does not give you the full picture, even in this information age. And people come in,
to us, when they speak to us, they have these set ideas of what they want to do. But then when we start speaking to them and start understanding what their interests are, what they want to experience, suddenly the whole itinerary changes because of our experience and because we know that them coming as a first time, this is what will work best for them. It’s putting that together.
Jason Elkins (13:31.754)
Right. I’ve heard.
Jason Elkins (13:36.534)
I’ve heard quite a few times people in my life have just used the expression, you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re just, you don’t know. You might think you know, but that’s because you don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know. And I think that that’s, especially so when you’re dealing with something so I want to say foreign, but just so different. mean, what’s happened, you know, Africa is just so much different than North America or
anywhere really and I remember the first time first time I was in Africa and had the safari experience I was there having it and I don’t know how I would have described it in that moment you know it’s just you can’t really the word is surreal and you’re like you can kind of reference back to maybe you know you watched I don’t
Purvi Shah (14:07.734)
Yep.
Jason Elkins (14:33.94)
safari documentaries in the past or whatever and you might you might kind of like okay I see the similarities but not really it’s just like my gosh I’m sitting here having a sundowner looking out over the savanna with there’s elephants over there there’s zebras over there there’s warthogs here there’s you know it’s just like holy cow how is this even even possible
Purvi Shah (14:54.656)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (14:59.942)
And if you haven’t, if you haven’t experienced it, there’s really no way to describe it. You know, which, is challenge. All right. I want to get, we’re going to come back to helping your clients and how that all looks like and what you’ve learned over the years. But I also really, I want to, I want to dig a little deeper into your childhood. Cause obviously it sounds like it was quite impactful before they, we do that. I just have to ask because I’m curious.
You’d mentioned that like your grandfathers, when they came from India, something you specifically mentioned was that because of the drought, families sent away their young boys, well, maybe not young boys, we can define that. Teenage boys. So I’m trying to envision the family, okay, we need to send away our teenage boys. And a lot of cultures…
Purvi Shah (15:44.406)
Teenage boys,
Jason Elkins (15:55.39)
I would almost come to the conclusion, we’re going to send them away, they’re going to go work and send all their money back, or they’re going to go work for a year or two and then they’re going to come back. What was it actually like? mean, the stories you heard, was it really like, we’re going to send them away, they’re going to start a new life and we may never see them again? Was that what it was like?
Purvi Shah (16:18.044)
I, Jason, I believe so. And yes, unfortunately, and I’ll be very honest, especially in our family, one, we don’t have a lot of written down history. And secondly is that,
Jason Elkins (16:19.404)
from what you’ve heard.
Purvi Shah (16:33.932)
for me personally, both my grandfathers had passed away before I was born. So it’s not, they’re not people I had a chance to have conversations with to find out. I’ve had conversations with both my grandmothers, but what happened is my grandmothers were living in India. My grandfathers went back to India to get married and then brought them back. And I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you some interesting stories about that. And I mean, at that time,
Jason Elkins (16:57.547)
Okay.
Purvi Shah (17:03.986)
in our culture, people used to get married early. like on my paternal side, my grandmother, like when I turned 12 or 13, she would laugh. She’d be like, now it’s time for you to get married because I got married at this age. And, you know, it was it was just our joke. And even my on my mom’s side, my grandmother got married at the age of 16. The very interesting thing at that time was moving to Kenya. Kenya was still a very wild place. You know, it wasn’t built up. It wasn’t developed.
developed. Both my grandmothers have told me that when they came here, like on my dad’s side, I think she actually went back to India for a few years before she came back.
to live with my grandfather because life was tough. And on my mom’s side, she, my mom’s mom came from a relatively well-to-do family in India. And when she moved here, she was moving from like a good house to kind of like a shack is the best way to describe it. But.
Jason Elkins (18:05.772)
Mm-hmm.
Purvi Shah (18:10.151)
It just shows the resilience. So I don’t think at that stage the families actually expected their
kids to necessarily go back to India. I don’t know what the expectation was in terms of the whole situation. But I think that what came out of it is that so many people came from certain communities that there was a very strong community bond which formed in these new locations where these people moved to, which then allowed the community to thrive. And because it was kind of a, I guess a do or die.
situation, people really, they looked out for each other, they helped each other out and they started being able to build businesses, establish families and actually make a life for themselves.
Jason Elkins (19:01.996)
So is it your understanding, because based on the experience with your family, the way you understand it, is maybe the guys left, came back, maybe got married and then took their wives back with them. Because that’s what I was imagining when you said they send their young men off, is what do they do with their daughters? I envisioned the small community full of older people with a bunch of daughters and all the young men are gone.
Purvi Shah (19:19.626)
Yes.
Purvi Shah (19:23.488)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (19:31.052)
It sounds like a lot of would come back and get married and return to Kenya. Is that the plan? All right. That’s cool. I knew I’d learn something today. All right. That’s very cool.
Purvi Shah (19:33.671)
Yes. Yep, Yes. Basically. So yeah, I mean, there’s different families. There’s a lot of books which have been written about this whole migration, but I’m just talking from my personal experience about what I know from my family.
Jason Elkins (19:57.196)
Okay, so growing up you said you’d go with your dad to, was it Mount Kenya? You’d mentioned another name of a place that you guys would go.
Purvi Shah (20:07.468)
So it’s called the Aberdeers National Park. The Aberdeers are a mountain range, but there’s a certain part of it which does have, which was just like good populations of elephants and stuff. And I think we used to go there because my dad used to love it. And I’m glad we went there because now I love it.
Jason Elkins (20:09.516)
Aberthurs. Aberthurs.
Jason Elkins (20:26.796)
You kind of mentioned going out there kind of in the evenings and having tea and stuff. Would you go camping as well?
Purvi Shah (20:36.149)
So we did do some camping trips, but not as much. But we, I mean, my first camping trips were also with my dad and my brothers and family. And we went to different places, but.
This like going to the Aberdeers was kind of like a, it was either that evening visit or it was like we had guests come to Neary, we would take them. We used to go out and do a lot of picnics, you know, as big family groups. So there’d be like four or five cars going and everyone would go on this picnic. So there was a lot of that and it was, it all happened as a group. So it was kind of like more of a family.
or friends and family.
Jason Elkins (21:28.288)
I’m gonna ask you some questions that are gonna kind of show a little bit of ignorance about growing up in Africa. I grew up in the Western United States and I remember that at one point my parents got divorced and I moved to the Eastern US. I was living in New York state and people would ask me, where are you from? And I’m from Wyoming. Well, Wyoming is in the mountains. It’s like.
Most people who live in the United States don’t know where Wyoming is. But if they do, they think of cowboys and Indians. So I’d get those questions. Do you ride the horse to school or to work? Do you? All kinds of those questions. Do you live in teepees? Do you live in houses? Whatever, whatever. But I also recognize that you don’t know what you don’t know.
I’ve spent some time in Africa, but haven’t really had a lot of opportunities to ask some of these questions. So I’m going to just ask you some questions that are kind of stereotypical that you can kind of help me, help me resolve in my mind. So when I asked you if you went camping when you were young, I’m thinking that’s crazy. Who would go camping in Kenya where they have things like, you know, I don’t know, leopards and lions and all these animals.
It’s just hard for me to get my head around. Even though we had bears in Wyoming, I grew up camping out outside. We had bears, we took precautions, but tell me what it’s like to go camping as a teenager in Kenya at that time. What do you remember that?
Purvi Shah (22:53.365)
Yeah. Yeah.
and
Purvi Shah (23:04.491)
So our camping trips, we didn’t do super wild camping. So we didn’t go out like I would say into the Maasai Mara or something like that. one of the camping trips was while we were climbing Mount Kenya. So you would set up tent at every place. And even Mount Kenya has wildlife. They have buffaloes, elephants. They have quite a lot of wildlife because it is a wild space.
Jason, I think I didn’t think about it.
Honestly, because you’re like, okay, my dad is taking me, people do this, it’s what’s done. You know, people climb the mountain, it’s safe. And then you do, you have rangers with you, you have wildlife rangers with you. And generally, even in places where there is wild camping or camping in the park, the animals don’t attack the tents and stuff. It’s not one of these things, even though I know you may have seen videos of it.
Generally,
Jason Elkins (24:16.3)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (24:27.656)
Okay. But that, but that felt normal. That’s just part of growing up. mean, wherever we grow up tends to, tends to feel normal pretty quickly. But also part of why I wanted to bring it up is because I’m sure you have guests that come and go on safaris with you and don’t know like, my gosh, I don’t want to get eaten. I don’t want to, you know, all these things, or why do we have to have these Rangers walking around with rifles over their shoulders?
You know, that type of thing can be a little intimidating for someone, especially if they grew up in, you know, Manhattan, New York or Los Angeles or something like that. So, okay. I was curious about that. That was really the only super naive question that I had at the moment. I’m sure I’ll come up with some more. Did you have, do you have some siblings as well?
Jason Elkins (25:26.535)
Were they as enthusiastic about going with your dad and being outside in nature? was this a whole family thing? It sounds like it, because you’d say usually it was a full group of maybe multiple families, right?
Jason Elkins (26:21.856)
I appreciate that you said it. Yeah. I appreciate that you said it wasn’t just our family because the next question I was going to ask you, is that a typical Kenyan attitude about nature and the wild? And here’s an example I’ll use to kind of illustrate where I’m going with this is I lived in Belize for a while and managed a scuba diving and fly fishing resort on an island 30 miles off the coast of Belize in the Caribbean.
And one of the things that shocked me the most when I got to Belize was, you know, it’s a Caribbean nation, Caribbean ocean. But there were a large number of people that lived in Belize that had no desire to get on a boat. Like not even no desire. Like I am not getting on a boat. They had no desire to go snorkeling or swimming or scuba diving. It was just like, Nope, I’m not a water person.
And then there were a handful, probably a very small percentage that would get on a small little canoe loaded with stuff to where the water was, you know, a couple inches below the gunwales and they would just paddle out across the, you know, across out in the ocean and they seem perfectly comfortable with it. So what’s that like in Kenya? Do you have kind of this, the same mix?
Jason Elkins (30:15.719)
OK.
Jason Elkins (32:04.606)
If you’re just trying to put food on the family table day after day after day, or maybe put your child through school or whatever, you know, a park, you know, a safari vacation is kind of outside the scope of, of possibly. I’m curious what you think. Either than.
So you’ve got a lot of Kenyans that aren’t able to experience that. I get that. I get that part. Is it important for the overall conservation goals to ensure that Kenyans do have that connect? So I guess what I’m saying is I’m going to play devil’s advocate. This is not what I believe. I’m just going to ask the question this way. What does it matter if the kids in Nairobi
ever see a lion or an elephant because it doesn’t really matter because if we charge a lot of money to tourists to come in and do it, we can take the money we earn from the tourists to hire rangers and do all this stuff to take care of the animals. It doesn’t really matter if the kids in Nairobi see these animals. So is that true? Does that come up when there’s political conversations or is the flip side is
We need to get the kids involved because they’re the future. We got to get them involved. We got to get them to love the animals so that they will work hard to protect them in the future. Cause that’s kind of two different, I guess, perspectives.
Jason Elkins (37:01.1)
You know, there’s a lot of places in the world where people go to engage with cultural stuff, where they don’t have elephants and lions. And I’m not suggesting that you not protect the elephants and the lions and the stuff like that. But I guess I’m curious, does the wildlife, just the presence of the wildlife kind of
in effect overshadow everything else that’s there so that when people think of Kenya, they think of wildlife because the wildlife is kind of dramatic compared to the rest of the world.
Jason Elkins (38:02.144)
Yeah, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that a few times. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (38:15.594)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (39:13.117)
In its own way, yeah, in its own way, yeah.
Jason Elkins (39:33.064)
I love that you brought this up because most of the, I’ve been fortunate to travel around quite a bit. I have not been to Kenya. I have been to some other locations in Africa and around the world. And every once in a I’ll show up in a place that people just insist, the people here are very hospitable. Like if you’re a guest, then you’re a gift from God and it’s their duty to treat you as such and da da da da.
But it’s, I’m trying to be careful how I say this, but it’s, but then it’s followed up with, but they have to get to know you first. You know, you know exactly what I mean. You’re like, people here don’t seem very friendly. no, they’re very friendly. Well, they don’t smile very much. well, once they get to know you, then they’re friendly. I’m like, well, how are they going to get to know me if they’re not smiling at me and I’m, you know, Mr.
smiley face and it’s just hard to sometimes imagine how you’re going to get to know them to the point where you get to see them being friendly. And then there’s other places that, you know, even probably throw some of the tourists off because people are so friendly. Hey, welcome. What do you think of my country? Come on inside. We’re having this. We’re going to eat that. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do that. And I envision Kenya a little bit more like that. I’ve had some, some Kenyan friends that I’ve met over the years. They’re like that.
So it sounds like, is that, I don’t know if there’s a question there. I guess the question I really had though was, are canyons typically excited about opening up and welcoming people in or is that something they have to kind of learn if they work in the tourism business?
Jason Elkins (41:40.908)
It’s a hard thing to learn.
Jason Elkins (41:59.936)
Does, is that a challenge for, because you’ve been doing this long enough. You’ve met a lot of people from a lot of places that have, that have come over and we don’t need to discuss particular stereotypes. We started the conversation without when we talked a little bit about accents and stuff, but I suspect you’ve seen some people that don’t really know how to deal with that and may even be distrusting of it. So maybe they show up in Africa. They show up in Kenya.
and the people in Kenya are so warm and welcoming that they almost don’t trust it? Or have a hard time, or have you seen that? Or do you feel like people just kind of, they get on the ground, they just, everything’s okay?
Jason Elkins (43:25.836)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (44:51.07)
Is this the word? I’m curious, is the word scam rolling around in your head? Is that? Yeah, because I feel like that’s kind of what you’re touching on when we mentioned the word trust and maybe somebody that thinks I’m going to just book a ticket to Nairobi. And then when I get there, I’m going to find a bus or I’m going to figure out some way to get out to out, you know.
to the park and then I’ll find somebody who’s got a van that will drive me around in the park and maybe things don’t work out the way they planned. Is that kind of where you’re going with that? Okay.
Jason Elkins (45:48.126)
If there, right. If there was a website, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Jason Elkins (47:08.246)
Right. And then of course there’s always, you know, I don’t know if we should say trusted platforms, but there’s ways that people look for social proof through, you know, review websites, that type of thing, or even the operator’s website, you know, if the operator’s website. I mean, here’s the thing, anybody can build a nice website. I know, I build websites for people. Anybody can build a nice website.
But just because they have a nice, you know, it’s not all about having the nice website, but it’s about having some, some reviews, some testimonials, some, something to it that gives you some sense that, you know, maybe they’ve been around for a while at least, and didn’t just pop up a website last week and ready to take your money. But actually what I was, what I was going to ask you is if there was a website that was just like,
kenyareviews.com that was just people writing reviews about their time in Kenya, not specific to operators or guides or anything like that. And you were to go through and read reviews from people that just reviewed their trip to Kenya. What I kind of got out of what you were saying was the people that work with reputable tour operators and arrange things ahead of time are the ones that are more likely to rate Kenya.
as a four or five star experience out of five. And if you were to read a bunch of one or two star reviews, oh, Kenya was this way, Kenya was that way, we were really disappointed, the people there weren’t friendly, or they were always trying to get our money, then you could almost like, oh, I know where those people came from. They’re the do-it-yourselfers. And I mean, I travel by myself, I do a lot of stuff by myself, but I suspect…
when it comes to putting together a safari, it’s probably not something I would do myself.
Jason Elkins (49:42.87)
There’s a reason it’s half price. Yeah, right?
Jason Elkins (50:44.492)
Well, I think a big part of the challenge is, like you said, this is a once in a lifetime trip for most people. And people can say that regardless of what their budget is or what their finances allow. But they don’t really know what is involved. they, so for example, I had a hot air balloon ride business for quite a while.
And most people have never been in a hot air balloon. They don’t know the difference. They just it’s on their bucket list. I want to go for a balloon ride. So they go online and they start looking at websites for balloon ride companies. And they’ve got one balloon ride company here that says, we’ll take you in our balloon. There’s a picture of a balloon and it’s $100. And then you’ve got another company over here that says we’ll take you in our balloon. And it’s $250.
And if you’ve never been in a balloon, you’ve never been around a balloon, you have no idea what that means. You just think, I just want to get above the ground. Look, I don’t know what a balloon ride is. I just think I want a balloon ride. I’m not sure. And it was really, I had the company on the upper end, probably the most expensive company. And it was a real challenge to, to, to explain to people what the differences, you know, and in this example, it’d be the difference between being 20 people.
in one basket, you know, with the pilot or being in a basket with four people. Well, that still doesn’t mean anything. I still don’t know what that means if I’ve never been in a balloon. I like people. What’s wrong with I assume the basket’s bigger. It’s not 20 people in the same small basket. So it’s just really, really hard to get your head around it. Whereas with restaurants, we kind of get it. We understand that McDonald’s is going to be cheaper than, you know, a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse.
whatever. So it’s easy. It’s like, this is something special. I’m going to go to Ruth’s Chris, or I just am hungry. I’m on the run. I can walk into McDonald’s and get what I want. But it doesn’t translate that well into things that they don’t have any experience with. So I suspect it’s the same thing with safaris. They just have no idea. They just want to see an elephant. Maybe they think they just want to see an elephant. they’re their kid to see an elephant or they want a selfie in front of a giraffe. I don’t
Jason Elkins (53:47.468)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (54:45.342)
You
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (56:24.672)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (57:15.584)
I suspect, I’m not gonna ask for, I don’t want any names or any identifying stuff, but I suspect that you know of websites, just say websites. I won’t say operators, just websites. I bet you know.
If you had to, if I, if I said, show me five websites that are totally crazy with what they promise and their pricing and all this that you think, my gosh, I can’t believe these people can sleep at night because they’re promising all this. They’re misleading people. They’re charging this price. It’s just horrible, but you have to work in the community. So you’re not going to say it on a podcast. get that, but you’re set for anybody that’s listening to this. can’t see your face. You’re sitting there shaking your head up and down.
There’s a bunch of those, aren’t there? But it’s hard for you to say it because even if you start engaging with a client and they say, well, I’m on this website, and you’re like, yeah, I know exactly which website you’re on. But it’s hard for you to say, Jason, close your browser, get away from that website. Those people are going to, I don’t know, scam you or whatever, or you’re going to have a really bad experience, or you’re going to go home writing a one-star review about Kenya in general.
That’s the case. how do you do that a tactful way? Any response?
Jason Elkins (59:58.38)
It’s the difference between a hot air balloon with 20 people in it.
fiance.
Jason Elkins (01:00:12.364)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:33.088)
That’s a bad sign. That’s a, that’s a really bad sign. I think when you’ve got to, when you’ve, when you’ve got a staff that’s excited to be there and is proud to wear their uniform, like maybe even after work, they go into the village and they keep their shirt on cause they’re proud to be there. And you’re going to have a totally different experience at that place as opposed to the guy that’s like, my gosh, I hate this job. can’t, I wish somebody else would hire me. Get me, get me that guy.
I’m curious, you, because you’ve mentioned quite a few times kind of when we speak with the guests and this and that, I’m curious, do you try and do a video call early on in the process or what is your, what do most of your interactions with clients look like? What advice would you give them?
Jason Elkins (01:04:23.946)
I had a feeling you were going to say that. As I started to ask the question, recognized, maybe I’m putting you on the spot when I say, you get on video calls? Because you could have said, no, we don’t generally do that. But I knew you weren’t going to say that. I could just tell that when you discuss communicating with the guests and working through this stuff, really, it’s the best way to do it. I also recognized that some people, some, I’m going to say consumers, guests, whatever you want to call them.
maybe reluctant to get on a video call. And that’s why I wanted to bring this up. If anybody has listened to this, maybe they’re reluctant to get on a video call because in the past, when they’ve been asked to get on a video call with somebody selling something,
They felt like it was about a high sales, high pressure sales pitch. So if I’m trying to buy insurance and someone says, let’s get on a sales call. I’m like, I don’t know about that. You know, that’s intimidating. Or I am trying to, you know, you know, something else in the world. then I might be reluctant to video call, but I’ll tell you with the tourism stuff and with like the customized stuff you’re doing, it’s so helpful to everybody.
It’s not about you mentioned that it’s more likely that somebody will actually book the trip. I get that. But I bet that’s not really what’s beneath it. Because the truth is, okay, yeah, they’re more likely to book the trip. Sure. Fine. Whatever. But they’re also probably more importantly, they’re more likely to book a trip that is well aligned with their goals. Which means they’re more likely to come home after the fact and write a great review and
and tell their friends about it, which is more important to you than just booking trips. Because you can put itineraries online with Book It Now, people book it, but you don’t, that’s not the kind of business you want, is it? I mean, you want to talk to the people.
Jason Elkins (01:06:51.692)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:07:15.542)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:08:04.396)
All right. I love that. And anybody that’s, that’s, you know, listening to this, I’m sitting here looking at you. Maybe this will end up being in a video someday. Somebody will be able to watch the video and I can see that in your face. So that’s where we’re going with doing the video calls and why I think it’s so helpful. It’s just that ability to really see, I mean, whether we should be this way or not, we tend to judge.
not judge, but we tend to either trust people or not trust people based on things that we see in their face. So that opportunity and it’s, it’s two way. Cause you, you might get a client that is telling you a potential client that’s telling you they want one thing. They don’t want to get on a video call and you’re like, well, I’m not sure I can trust that I can do the right job for you because I haven’t seen your face. haven’t, I need to connect with you on some level to figure out.
So for example, when I say that you can send off an email and saying, you know, day four, you’ve got three options. You go, I don’t know, look at elephants, go visit a community or go do something else. So maybe you’ve given them three options and they’re reading it and an email. They don’t really know what that is. But if you’re on a video call with them and you say, well, you could go look at the elephants. You could do this. You could do that. You can watch the expression on their face, especially if they’re families there.
You know, if their daughter is sitting right next to them, elephants, know, and it just, and it just becomes clear to you. It’s like, Ooh, I think the elephants, let’s talk more about that. You can just make so much more progress and have such a better chance of providing that experience that you want to do. So. And I suspect maybe if there’s somebody that’s just absolutely, I don’t know what you’re, I’m curious what your thoughts are. If there’s somebody who’s like, Nope, we don’t need to do a video call. I’m a busy person. Which you’re like,
Well, this would be a lot quicker, but I’m a busy person. I don’t have time for video call. Honestly, do you just kind of like, okay, fine. If you don’t, if you don’t want to do video call, you’re not the right fit for us anyway. So no big deal. Probably dodged a bullet there. I, and did you have to learn that the hard way? The follow up question is, did you have to learn that the hard way?
Jason Elkins (01:10:26.572)
you
Jason Elkins (01:11:19.532)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:11:26.528)
But it also takes an awful lot of time either way, because just emails back and forth. And it takes a lot of time for you, honestly, and your team to put in that kind of time and effort to really help someone create a wonderful experience that their family is going to remember forever. And I’m just going to say it, and they’re not.
interested enough or willing and willing to jump on a video call with you is like, well, at some point, it can’t be more important to you, pervy, than it is to them. You know, and it’s like, geez, this doesn’t seem really important to you. So but you want me to spend the next three hours putting all of this together based on this, what you think maybe you want out of an email. And, and then I send it to you and
Yeah, I don’t know. You care about what you do. You want to, right? Yeah. It’s hard to say that sometimes, especially for newer operators that haven’t learned it the hard way. They’re just so excited to have somebody in their inbox that says, can you put together a proposal for me? All right. That’s cool. We discussed a lot. We could probably come back and have 10 more conversations.
I know we should do that. Let’s, uh, let’s plan on doing that. Cause I’m not even sure we touched the tip of the iceberg, but we did cover a lot. So I’m curious though, before we wrap this conversation up, what did I forget to ask you? What do you wish I would have asked you? Or what do you want to make sure that, that our listeners know about either you, the business, Africa, Kenya, or just life in general before we wrap.
Jason Elkins (01:15:27.02)
People are just, oh, it must be a lot. There’s a lot of stuff there, so it must be good. Which, yeah, I think we both know.
Jason Elkins (01:15:57.292)
I.
I love that. it’s definitely one thing that I’ve noticed with you, because I have an opportunity to speak with a lot of tour operators, all wonderful doing their own things in their own ways. And obviously there’s crossover. But you’re right. It’s not that common to come across somebody that’s kind of starts with what do we want to do for the community? What are our projects? What are our passions? And how do we…
How do we leverage these resources with tourism, bringing people in from outside to help them experience it and contribute and all that. That is pretty cool because a lot of tour operators, honestly, kind of start because they’re excited about tourism and travel and, ooh, I can make a little bit of money doing this. And then…
And then as time progresses, they realize that everybody else’s website has something on there about how they give back to the community. So I guess we better do the same. Their marketing person is like, hey, you guys need to find a charity to contribute so we can put their logo on your website. So, you know, so we can talk about how this is a green company and conservation focus, they’re sustainable and all that. I’m not trying to, I’m not calling out any names or anything specific, but.
as someone that’s worked in this business for a while and has been around, there is difference. There’s I’ve met, I’ve met a handful of operators that are really, really, really serious about the community and they just operate differently and the, and their guests have a much better experience, which is what’s so cool about it. You know, cause it’s just, you know, when you do anything, you know, if you cook from a place of love and, and, contribution and the food is better.
Jason Elkins (01:17:48.62)
So it’s kind of the same thing with what you’re doing. So very, cool. I’m excited to, yeah, let’s make a point to come back and have some more conversations. We’re going to have a link right to your website in the show notes. So anybody that’s listening that feels that connection, if they’re thinking about going to Africa, I would say, you you don’t need to fill 10 forms out and wait for Purvi to respond and say, hey, let’s jump on a video call. Just go over.
you know, reach out to her, set up a video call and whether, you know, whether it’s right fit or not, I’ll let the two of you decide. Um, but I suspect that they’ll, they’ll know a lot more and be a lot more realistic about their expectations after spending some time with you on a call. So thank you so much for joining me.
Jason Elkins (01:18:39.382)
I’ll please do.
Jason Elkins (01:18:58.732)
I’m not surprised. And because it makes sense because quite, I mean, probably anybody that’s been on this earth more than a few days has had experiences where they made the wrong choice. They knew what the right choice was or they had the right choice was in front of them, but they made a different choice.
And then when they made that different choice, someone else comes along and says, hey, I’m getting ready to do that. What would you do? Well, don’t make the mistake I made. Get on a call with Brewery. So very cool. I appreciate you sharing that. So thank you so much.
Jason Elkins (01:19:41.74)
Appreciate you. We’ll do it again soon. It was a fun conversation to have and I trust that anybody that listens to it will enjoy it just as much as we enjoyed creating it. So thanks, Burby. We’ll chat with you soon. Bye bye.
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