Dear Mrs. Proctor, Thank you so much for providing us with your valuable feedback. We welcome any constructive comments and suggestions to help us improve our services. We trust that you have returned to Nigeria safely, and hope that you got some time to unwind after your 2-week holiday to Kenya and Tanzania. We are sorry to hear that you were displeased with our services, contrary to the accounts of your husband, the safari guides and the staff of the various accommodations where you stayed. We understand your frustration and displeasure due to the fact that Amani Afrika did not agree to pay for your extended holiday, after Kenya Airways delayed your return flight to Lagos for more than 36 hours, so you ended up having a couple of extra nights in East Africa. No one likes schedule changes that are imposed upon them while they are on holiday, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when such inconveniences have become commonplace. We can sympathize with you. But the flight was not booked through us, and such a change caused by Kenya Airways was not our fault. It is not true that you had purchased an “all-inclusive tour” for the Zanzibar portion of the trip. We outlined the specific inclusions and exclusions in the proposed itinerary, which were also stated on the service agreement that your husband signed when he booked the trip with us. In nowhere had we mentioned that you’d be provided with a guide and vehicle in Zanzibar, other than the transfers to get between the accommodations and the airport. The service agreement explicitly states that additional meals, drinks, transfers and activities in Zanzibar would be excluded. The “transportation and other expenses out of pocket” that you had to pay, were for the Covid tests that you took (which we were not made aware of as a condition for your return to Nigeria prior to your travels, yet duly organized on your behalf to minimize the disruptions you would otherwise experience while you were holidaying on the island), the Safari Blue tour and the diving trip your family decided to do afterwards. We never meant to misrepresent what we set out to provide you. If there were any misunderstandings, we sincerely apologize. And we can understand your disappointment in not being given another free upgrade with regard to your beach accommodation in Zanzibar, after being offered a gratuitous upgrade to a Presidential Suite by the gracious staff at the Park Hyatt Zanzibar hotel. But that is not a legitimate reason to coerce Amani Afrika into paying for the additional nights of hotel stay outside of our service agreement that your husband has requested us to book on your behalf. Amani Afrika is a specialist in providing customized travel experiences in East Africa to overseas travelers. We do not sell cookie-cutter itineraries, and always design personalized trips based on the client’s budget and preferences. Over weeks of consultation with your husband, we finally settled on a 14-day itinerary to Kenya and Tanzania over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays at a price of US$14,000 for your family of 3, to include either a 2-bedroom unit or a family suite with a separate sleeping area from the main bedroom for your 8-year-old daughter, for each of the 13 nights. That was after a few iterations to cut the price of the itinerary down, as per your husband’s request to “keep the costs reasonable” with “accommodation that is not roughing it so to speak”. Some travel agents, notably those that sell set itineraries or group tours, tend to only indicate the level of accommodations on the itinerary according to a pseudo star-rating system, without specifying which hotels the travelers will actually be staying at, until shortly before the trip or even when they travelers arrive, which is not how Amani Afrika works. We always present our prospective clients with an itinerary that details the accommodations suggested, with a whole page dedicated to each accommodation that is filled with descriptions, pictures and web links. Never in our communication with your husband had we ever tried to suggest that you had been booked at a 5-star resort for every single night of your family vacation here. The accommodations that we have reserved for you are also listed in the booking agreement that your husband signed back, along with information regarding the room category chosen and meal plans. Therefore, we find your argument of Amani Afrika not having booked you at a 5-star beach resort in Zanzibar an invalid one to warrant a compensation. There were never any complaints raised over the 2 nights you had already stayed at your sea-view beach villa. It was only after we had presented you with an invoice to settle the payment for the additional hotel nights requested that you and your husband called us in an effort to coerce us into paying the extra bills on your behalf. When we asked if you had wanted to move to an alternative accommodation, you expressly said no, that you’d prefer to stay where you were, but that Amani Afrika should take care of the bills. In the past, we have indeed upgraded some clients during their travels here out of our own accord, either as an expression of regret for hiccups they experienced or as a token of appreciation, because we had wanted to treat them. We have also offered to change accommodations for our clients who did not like where they were staying once they reached their hotel, on our account, when they asked us to do so politely. But threatening to post negative comments online is not a good motivating factor, and we are very sorry about that, for we do not condone this type of negative behaviour. Prior to confirming your booking with us, you and your husband got on a call with us one Sunday afternoon, to go over the different parts of the itinerary. You were given an opportunity to ask questions, and we were equally given an opportunity to answer your questions and clarify any confusions you might have regarding the travel arrangements. It was never our intention to misrepresent any parts of the trip we had proposed to provide you with. While it is true that you were quoted US$14,000 for your family holiday in East Africa, we should take into consideration the length of your trip and the inclusions of the itinerary, prior to making a judgment that you had been overcharged. We acknowledge that Tanzania is not a low-cost destination, with park fees in the Serengeti costing US$130 per person per night alone, before even factoring in accommodation or safari costs. Your trip package included a 2-bedroom unit or a family suite for each of the 13 nights, all the meals while on safari, park fees, transportation, guiding fees, activity fees as well as a flight from Serengeti to Zanzibar for 3 people. So it is not fair to say that you should expect to be accommodated at a US$1,000 per night resort in Zanzibar, when the safari part of your trip occupied a significantly bigger portion of the allocated budget. This was a point we had tried to explain to you on the phone while you were in Zanzibar. And we would be delighted for you to post your travel experience on your personal blog, Madam, as you have repeatedly said you would do, so you can share the beauty of East Africa with your audience. The only plea that we have, is that you try to represent your travel experiences authentically. Posting a photo of yourself next to a flamingo lake at Amboseli National Park on social media and tagging it as Lake Nakuru, and passing a visit to Esilalei Village near Lake Manyara in Tanzania as a trip to the famous Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya—neither of which were on the itinerary that we had duly executed for you—do not constitute good travel journalism. In fact, we do not think that it is ethical behaviour to be deceiving your audience. Such a practice is reminiscent of cultural (mis)appropriation, where the Maasai people of Esilalei Village in Tanzania were “taken for a ride” as if they were people from another village in Kenya. Even though we are all East Africans, with similarly coloured skin, we come from different backgrounds. There are over 100 tribes in Tanzania alone. The Maasai tribes at different villages have slightly different customs, especially since they are spread across two different countries, even though they share common roots. We do think it would be fairer and more respectful to the people at Esilaei Village in Tanzania who have opened their homes to you with open arms, opened their lives to you with open hearts, to at least get a nod of recognition, if not appreciation. You have a powerful platform, Madam, and with it, a powerful voice. We think it would be a marvelous deed if you were to put it to good use and appropriately portray the places you have traveled to in an authentic, positive, light, as we are sure your audience would prefer an honest depiction over a curated alternative reality. We would like to conclude this response by saying that instead of settling the bills towards your additional hotel stays, we will donate the funds to Lemugur Village, which is the Maasai community that Amani Afrika is a part of. On behalf of the villagers, we thank you for enabling this generous donation to go towards bettering their lives in Tanzania. If you would like to visit Lemugur Village on your next visit to Tanzania to meet the faces of those you have helped, you are very welcome. We wish you a very happy new year, Mrs. Proctor, and all the success with your life and travels!