Zambia's Big Week: A Re-Election, New Suites and Wider Skies

Hakainde Hichilema has been re-elected with roughly 60% of the vote, but the count itself was rough — arrests, gunfire and reports of stolen ballots marked election night, and an opposition that looks unlikely to accept the result quietly. For advisors, the outcome itself isn't the concern: Hichilema's economic policies have been broadly tourism-friendly. The concern is the near-term noise around a contested result, which could touch transit points and provincial centres even if camps in South Luangwa, Lower Zambezi and Livingstone stay unaffected. Worth flagging to clients travelling in the coming weeks: build in local-news monitoring and flexible ground transfers, and keep an eye on Lusaka-adjacent routings in particular. No indication yet of unrest reaching safari areas, but this is a story to watch rather than close the book on.

Green Safaris has expanded two of its Zambia properties: Shawa Luangwa Camp gains two new suites in South Luangwa, and Chisa Busanga Camp adds a fifth elevated 'nest' on the Busanga Plains — both sellable ahead of peak season. Separately, Proflight Zambia has stretched its scheduled network, adding Maun and Windhoek to routes already linking Johannesburg and Cape Town with Lusaka and Livingstone. Together these lower the friction for advisors building multi-country circuits — Zambia paired with Botswana's Okavango or Namibia's north — without relying on ad hoc charters for every leg.

• Shawa Luangwa Camp: +2 suites, South Luangwa
• Chisa Busanga Camp: 5th elevated 'nest', Busanga Plains
• Proflight Zambia: now also serves Maun and Windhoek from JNB/CPT via Lusaka/Livingstone

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber is extending the Electronic Travel Authorisation to visa-exempt travellers with a R500 processing fee attached, and the tourism industry is pushing back — not on the principle, but on the absence of detail. Visa specialists say the rollout timeline, the actual process, and what travellers get in exchange for the fee (faster entry? better vetting?) haven't been explained, even to the trade bodies expected to field client questions. For advisors, this means an extra cost and step is coming for South Africa-bound clients who currently need nothing more than a passport, with no firm date or justification to hand them yet. Until Home Affairs clarifies scope and timing, treat this as a heads-up rather than something to build into quotes.

Peace Parks Foundation is investing $23 million across Mozambique's Banhine, Limpopo, Maputo and Zinave national parks, with 385 animals — giraffe, zebra, impala and wildebeest — being translocated from an now roughly 30,000-strong Maputo Special Reserve population to restock Banhine. It's a direct upgrade to game-viewing product in a transfrontier circuit that advisors have been positioning as a Kruger-adjacent alternative for clients wanting fewer vehicles at a sighting. Restocking takes time to show up as denser wildlife viewing, but the funding signals sustained investment in the Great Limpopo corridor rather than a one-off grant, which is the detail worth relaying to clients weighing Mozambique against more established Kruger-side options.

Uganda Airlines will fly Entebbe-Kigali three times weekly from November 18, giving advisors a direct link between two primate-trekking gateways that previously required routing through Nairobi or Addis Ababa. That's a meaningful itinerary simplification for clients combining Uganda's gorilla permits with Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, cutting a connection and the associated overnight or long layover risk. Worth building into quotes for late-2026 primate-trekking itineraries once the route is bookable, particularly for clients on tighter timelines who previously had to choose one country's gorillas over the other rather than pairing both.