GRAMMATICAS CONSULTING LTD
Briefing Note
By Dominic Grammaticas FCA
September 2026
It is a simple question. But the answer says a lot about how connected you really are to the environment in which you operate.
Do you know the name of your local chief? The chairman of your conservancy? Your sector warden? The KWS officer commanding your region? The County Secretary? The headmaster of the nearest school?
If you are a CEO or general manager of a safari operation and you cannot answer all of those questions without hesitation, something is not right.
Tourism in East Africa does not operate in isolation. It operates in a web of relationships with communities, government, regulators, conservation bodies, and local institutions. Those relationships are not optional extras. They are foundational to the long-term viability of your business. Your concession, your water supply, your access road, your staff pipeline, your security, your social licence to operate. All of these depend on the quality of your relationships with the people and institutions around you.
The best operators understand this instinctively. They invest time in those relationships not because there is an immediate commercial return, but because they know that when something goes wrong, when a land dispute surfaces, when a community grievance escalates, when a regulatory change is proposed, the strength of your existing relationships determines whether you are part of the conversation or an afterthought.
This is not something you can delegate to your community liaison officer and forget about. It starts at the top. A CEO who is known personally by the local chief, who attends community meetings, who is seen at the school, who picks up the phone to the sector warden, sends a signal that resonates far beyond the immediate interaction. It says: we are here, we are invested, and we care about more than our own operation.
Building and maintaining these relationships takes time, local knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and consistency. It cannot be done from behind a desk or from a head office in another country.
If you would like help strengthening your stakeholder relationships and building the local networks that underpin a resilient and responsible business, I would welcome the conversation.
Dominic Grammaticas FCA
Managing Director, Grammaticas Consulting Ltd
dominic@grammaticas.com
www.grammaticas.com
