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In Conversation with Cath Brink & Bobo Camp: Part 3
Bobo Camp: A ‘Picnic’ at the foot of the Falls
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In Conversation with Cath Brink from Tusks & Trails: Part 2
12 September 2024
Tusks and Trails: Journeys into the Wilderness
A few years ago, a group of scientists took to the skies above southern and eastern Africa in order to answer a single, crucial question: how many elephants are there on the continent? They were part of the excellently-named Great Elephant Census, a project that spanned 18 countries and almost 300,000 miles, fast becoming the most comprehensive survey of these magnificent creatures ever undertaken. The results were sobering. The census-takers counted a tick over 350,000 elephants, a number that represented a 30% drop in seven years and a catastrophic, ‘can that really be true?’ nosedive from the 10 million of the 1930s.
One of the few places that provided a cause for optimism was the crossroads country that connects Africa’s vast central area with the east and south: Zambia. Here, elephant numbers remained largely stable, allowing scientists to strike a cautious note of positivity. When I was deep in my elephant number rabbit hole in preparation for this, the Tusks part of our interviewee’s name was making perfect sense. As for the Trails? Well, Zambia remains one of Africa’s last untouched wildernesses, a wild place of big skies and big game. And yes, there are an awful lot of trails there, aching to be explored.
Tusks and Trails is the brainchild of Cath Brink, who we’re chatting with today, and Dan Bradshaw, a couple who met whilst working in the luxury travel business in London. They’ve both got strong links to the country – and to its travel industry. Cath’s parents founded Livingstone’s Adventure, one of the pioneering activity tour operators in this part of the world and a company that still thrives today. Dan was in the team that specialised in Zambia at Audley Travel, a role that saw him travel to and get to know the country, both personally and professionally.
What they both realised was that Zambia had a gap in its travel market. As a relative newcomer to the tourism and travel industry in general – and especially in comparison to world-famous neighbours like Botswana and Tanzania – there were very few people in the country offering destination management services. Basically, they’ll organise everything around a trip for their clients, as well as on the ground logistical management and agent to agent dealings; they have a lot of strings to their bow.
To understand where Tusks and Trails came from, though, it’s important to know a bit about Cath’s Zambian travel grounding. ‘My parents arrived in Zambia from South African in 1998, for 6 months,’ she laughs, ‘and never left’. They fell in love with the country, establishing deep roots and pioneering an adventure travel company that operates a staggering number of adrenaline-fuelling activities across the country. ‘Microlites, safari, helis, plane rides, rafting, horses – they do the lot, really,’ Cath says, with more than a hint of understatement. Her parents have become a part of the country’s tourism industry’s furniture, with her dad sitting under the Chair of the Zambian Tourism Association in another role.
It was after plenty of to-ing and fro-ing between Cath, Dan, and her parents, that they embarked upon their Tusks and Trails adventure. Both Cath and Dan knew that they wanted to work in Zambia, in travel, but precisely how that looked remained elusive. That was until just post-Covid, when they upped ship from London, took over a dormant, employee-less arm of the original adventure company, rebranded and redirected it, before setting about creating what it is today. ‘It was a lot in the beginning,’ we’re told, ‘neither of us had ever owned or run a business before and baptism of fire doesn’t really cover it.’
The couple set about creating a company that would provide dream holidays to punters in this magical place. It was a challenge not without difficulties. ‘We had loads of energy and, thanks to my dad, a very fortunate network of people to talk to,’ Cath says, ‘but it’s the unforeseen stuff that makes it tricky’. They knew how to operate in the travel business, that much is plain. But load-shedding, where there’s no power for 18 hours a day? The struggle to source enough pens and pencils? The pressure of making the family proud and showing they can do it? ‘That was tough’, says Cath, ‘the added layer of working in Africa and trying to prove yourself, we definitely felt that’. ‘But as challenging as it’s been, it’s been equally rewarding. The feeling when the first booking came in,’ Cath pauses as she tries to think of the best word, ‘it was magic’.
And working as a couple?, I dare to ask. ‘It’s been interesting’, Cath says with a hoot, ‘because you have to go through another teething process of working out how someone works, but we’re highly communicative and always learn from our moments of tension’. More remarkably, they have survived the ultimate test. ‘There are no barbers here, so I’ve learnt to cut Dan’s hair.’
The pair of them, in little under a year of trading, have built a destination management company with relationships with over 300 individual lodges, each and every one of them personally vetted. ‘We’ve spoken in person with the owners and have nurtured these relationships from the start. We’ve also made sure that everyone we work with is fully licensed – not as standard as you’d like to think – because we’re not sending clients on trips we wouldn’t go on ourselves’.
Cath and Dan have also had to build a team, small for now, but mighty. ‘Dynamite definitely comes in small packages,’ says Cath, ‘and we’re super proud of our team here’. The hires had to go through two rounds of pretty rigorous interviewing – again, far from standard in the country – and are now busy with the task, or tasks, at hand. Cath and Dan trained them up to the standards they were subjected to in London, ensuring that the Tusks and Trails team were well-grounded in luxury travel and could chat at ease with agents and clients, wherever they come from.
That’s mostly the UK for now, by the sound of things, with a specific focus on their former home and Europe in general. The US market, with its dollar-strong travellers, is the next frontier but, for now, Cath and Dan are focussing on doing what they do best. That’s not to say that there aren’t plans for the future – and big ones, too. ‘This is an inside scoop, but we want to be an all-encompassing company, with our own properties, transfers, activities and more’. There are already a handful of DMCs that do the same thing, and Tusks and Trails want to join the big leagues.
And who’d bet against them? Cath’s energy is utterly infectious and a quick flick through their Instagram and website is a wanderlust-inducing montage of gorgeous lodges and landscapes that will surely have the punters flocking. The team, small but mighty for now, sound as together as they are impressive – Cath’s recall for lodge and place names is nothing short of incredible – and the tourism industry in Zambia is undergoing a rapid expansion. Tusks and Trails are at the forefront of that, a modern DMC for those who want a trip into one of Earth’s last true wildernesses.