Lime Blue delivers virtual safari incentive with Green Route

Dealing with postponed incentive trips has been a challenge for everyone in the luxury incentives sector in 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

But when a client’s trip to South Africa was postponed earlier this year, UK-based agency Lime Blue Solutions and DMC partner Green Route Africa treated incentive winners to the next best thing – a virtual safari experience at the Shamwari Game Reserve from the comfort of their own homes – and it didn’t disappoint…

The brief

UK-based agency Lime Blue Solutions was due to deliver an incentive trip to South Africa for a pharmaceutical client in April 2020 in partnership with DMC Green Route Africa. The trip for 40 couples – top performers and their partners – had to be postponed due to the global coronavirus lockdown.

“We have moved the trip to 2022, but the client wanted to find a way to get all the winners together virtually and celebrate in some way,” said Lime Blue managing director Nicola Miller. “I was invited by Green Route to trial a virtual safari at the Shamwari Game Reserve, and it was amazing. Obviously it’s not the same as being there, but it’s probably the best virtual experience I have had this year as it’s something completely different. So I suggested to my client that it would be a good way to acknowledge the winners and give them a taste of Africa.”

The Solution

The two-hour event took place on 24 September at 4-6pm, and all 40 couples were invited to join a Zoom call, with children and family members also welcome to take part. The event kicked off with a non-alcoholic gin tasting session before the safari with The Duchess, based in Cape Town, and Lime Blue sent out all the ingredients to the participants along with recipes, gin glasses and coloured metal straws.

The virtual safari itself was an hour-long experience, beginning with a welcome from the general manager of Shamwari Game Reserve, who then handed over to the rangers.

Green Route Group Sales Manager Ilyaas Narker said: “A normal safari would be about three hours, including a refreshment stop. For the virtual experience, an hour was the perfect amount of time because it kept the attention span of everyone. We would normally have one ranger for one vehicle, but this time we had three rangers being our eyes for everyone, so it made it a lot easier to track and see the animals.”

Prior to the Zoom call, the rangers had been tracking the animals to try and estimate where they would be. The live video feed switched between the three different rangers when they spotted animals, and they talked through what they were seeing, with the participants able to ask questions in the Zoom chat which the rangers answered.

“The Shamwari rangers were amazing and really pulled it all together. They knew that this group were supposed to travel to Shamwari this year but couldn’t, and I think that really made them go the extra mile to make it special,” said Narker. “We were exceptionally lucky as within seven minutes we saw two cheetahs. I have been doing this for 16 years and I think I have only seen cheetah a handful of times. We also saw a herd of elephants with young ones that were just a few weeks old.”

The verdict

“I think a virtual safari is a really good alternative for any company that is looking for a different virtual experience. If they have already done things like a magician, cocktail classes and music, this is something a bit different and exciting - you really do feel as though you are there. For this group, it was even more special because this was the reserve they were supposed to be visiting on their trip,” said Miller. “We were lucky that the weather was fantastic and lots of animals came out to play. We saw rhino, lion, cheetah, elephants, hippo and zebra. The feedback was really positive and one of the participants said they couldn’t believe they were hearing hippo live from rainy Manchester!”

“We knew exactly what the brief was, it was very clear was from the get-go, which made it really easy to execute,” said Narker. “We did a rehearsal a week earlier to give the end-client an idea of what it would be like on the day, which helped. It’s a matter of knowing the client, and that is where Nicola did an amazing job because she knew exactly what the client would like. The fact that the group were so interactive and asked lots of questions also made it really special.”