Afritrip Group Acquires Sought-after Safari.com Domain

Afritrip group has recently acquired the safari.com internet domain after a year-long hunt after they were forced into selling their previous domain Krugerpark.com due to pending legal action from South African National Parks. South African National Parks wanted the Krugerpark.com domain as it was an exact match for Kruger National Park which is a SANParks property.

Afritrip risked losing 80% of their business due to the imminent loss of the Krugerpark.com domain. While searching for alternative domains in the safari niche, then CEO Ric Meulemans came across Safari.com. Chief operating officer Alexis Boshoff said: "It was just this dormant placeholder website with a few safari listings. Nothing had changed on the site since the ’90s."

Afritrip was interested in purchasing the Safari.com domain, as it fit in with their long-term plans for expansion. Various challenges were faced on the road to acquiring, the first hurdle was uncovering the identity of the domain owner. Boshoff contacted the German technical contact listed for the site, who was then persuaded to reveal the identity of the site owner. The second challenge would be convincing the site owner to sell as the owner had previously turned down offers from Apple - whose web browser is called Safari - and Ralph Lauren, which makes Safari cologne for men since the site was first registered in the early 90’s.

Afritrip enlisted the services of US private investigator Dan Hurley to conduct an investigation, track down the owner and start negotiations for Safari.com. Negotiations went on until March with an improved offer of R5-and R10-million and a fully paid safari holiday sealing the deal. The sale took effect in June."We took ownership of the Safari.com domain about a week before we had to give up Krugerpark.com," said Boshoff.

"The purchase of the Safari.com domain will allow extensive operations to all parts of Africa and is no longer focused primarily in South Africa; this allows customers who are arranging trips to book any and all African Safaris with Safari.com."

The company has grown from just focussing on the Kruger National Park and other SANParks properties to bringing visitors to any/all national parks on the African continent in 2017. The final acquisition will now allow the company to expand its offering to a wider range of accommodations and safari experiences across borders.