Tipping Ritual & Dilemma

We are often asked for guidance on tipping because there are no absolute rules. It’s a topic that should be considered when planning the total cost of a hunt.

Restaurant tipping utilizes some established norms (10 – 15 – 20%) that have been assumed by society. Restaurant industry tips are often shared with people we don’t see or may not utilize such as kitchen staff, bartenders, other servers, etc. Conversely, hunting and especially international hunting, usually involves a team that we interact with on a personal basis daily. This necessity creates logical questions about who should get what. 

Also, often there is both a main and assistant guide or PH conducting a hunt. And a further complicating factor is that some outfitters and safari operators compensate their employees with base pay that assumes a certain level of tipping that fills in to make their total wage satisfactory. As hunters, we won’t know who gets paid what, and not knowing this places additional burden on us to ensure that we reward appropriately.

To all of us hunters, tipping can be a mine field. We don’t want to under-tip because we don’t want to devalue the experience or the knowledge and effort that benefitted us. And we don’t want to over-tip and set an expectation that can’t always be fulfilled by others and create ongoing expectation and disappointment.

Here are tipping principles to consider that will hopefully begin to demystify tipping: 

1. Tipping is discretionary. You will feel obligated but you are in control to pay for the value that was delivered to you.

2. Merit should be the determining factor in deciding whether a tip is given and the total amount of the tip.

3. Always take the latest issue and freshest $100 bills. There is so much counterfeiting of US Dollars around the world, that locals are distrusting of it. Fresh bills solve the problem.

Keeping in mind that there are no hard and fast rules, there are some norms. Here are some tipping guidelines to consider:

• AFRICAN SAFARIS - For safari pricing structured with a daily rate plus trophy fees, with a few exceptions the tip for the PH or guide is based on the daily rate (not the trophy fees). A PH would typically get around 10% of the daily rate per day as a decent baseline for plains game safaris and a baseline of up to 20% of the daily rate per day for remote complex or special safaris (e.g., lion, elephant, Lord Derby eland, bongo, mountain nyala). The camp staff would split an additional 10-20% which can average out to 100-$150/day to be split among them.

• ASIAN SAFARIS – The daily rate plus trophy fee model is not used very much for Asian hunts. Tips are based on total hunt cost, and that total will typically be split among the entire team assisting the hunt, including the guide(s). Here are some examples:

  • The total baseline tip for combination Marco Polo/ Ibex hunt in Kyrgyzstan costing $47,000 and $65,000 in Tajikistan will be $4,700 and $6,000, respectively.

  • US Dollars go a long way for a hunting team in Mongolia. For example, the outfitter for a High Altai argali hunt that cost $155,000 suggested a total guide and camp staff tip of $7,000. The cost of a premium High Altai argali hunt can escalate to between $180,000 to $220,000 and so does the level of tip. Total tips for premium or VIP argali hunts can escalate to $10,000 or $20,000 depending on your guide, pre-scouting resources not bundled into the hunt price, etc.

  • $7,500-$15,000 would be a good baseline range for a Markhor / Himalayan Ibex  combo hunt in Pakistan. 

  • 10-15% is a good baseline for other Asian hunts.

• REST OF WORLD SAFARIS – 10-15% of the total hunt cost is a good baseline.

Merit and Exceptional Effort

Merit is in itself highly subjective because of wide ranging definitions that stem from different ways of interpreting all the factors that enable success and enjoyment. But you’ll know when you have had a good experience and enjoyed a good relationship with your PH, guide, and team.

You’ll know when together you overcame circumstances to make a tough hunt come good, or they helped you take a remarkable trophy, or simply had a positive out-of-body experience. That’s when you want to consider tipping beyond the baseline levels.

Here are a few perspectives and questions that will help you determine the extent of both merit and exceptional effort.

Helping you judge and hunt selectively. A PH or guide who says “let’s pass this one up because I think we can do better” is giving a clear indication that he wants the best for you and has a sense of personal pride. If he was willing to hunt harder for a better trophy rather than just get the hunt over with and you ended up getting an above average trophy because of his discernment, consider rewarding him above the baseline. 

Attentiveness. You will sense when someone is a conversationalist and trying to do something out of the ordinary for you. Behaviors like politeness, courtesy, encouragement, and generally working hard to get the best out of you could easily deserve an uplift on the baseline tip. 

The ability to handle adversity. Bad weather, animals not where they were to be, or any number of uncontrollable things that can go wrong will challenge the normal conduct of hunting.

• Did he make the right decisions in light of weather or conditions that would likely impede the hunt or potentially prevent you from being successful?

• Did he calmly position you to take the shot, or did you hurry the shot because he himself was not composed?

• In the case of a missed shot, did he stabilize your high emotions, offer encouragement, and happily push harder to get you another chance?

• In the case of a wounded animal, how effective was the follow-up process?

The attributes and list of questions above is not exhaustive, but they represent some of the filters for determining merit. When there are positive responses to questions like these, you know you were hunting with a knowledgeable and caring professional. 

Distributing Tips

Tip your guide or PH directly and privately. 

Regardless of your pre-hunt tip plan, seek advice from your PH, Guide, or outfitter on tipping team members. They have a sense of what each person/function contributes to the hunt and they can assist with apportioning tips according to the importance of their individual roles.

Distributing tips to the team involves ceremony. You are all celebrating the hunt and you are celebrating them. It’s always better if you personally can issue the cash to each individual contributor. Take some envelopes. Write their name on it. Present it with a handshake, sincere thanks, and a smile. 

Sometimes the PH, camp manager, or safari operator will have reasons for holding cash disbursements until “payday”. They have their reasons. Usually, it’s to protect against theft or to prevent squandering.

The workaround for the hunter in this situation is that each contributor gets a paper IOU for the specific amount they are to get. As with the cash, it’s best if you can hand out the IOU slip to each contributor along with your thanks. A journal entry is made for each amount by the PH or safari operator for each team member, and at the end of the safari season or when one of the team gets leave to visit their family, the PH or safari operator will distribute their earnings.

For Pantheon Hunters, those who have outfitted and guided our personal hunts have always out-performed. So, we have always tipped more. We truly understand how precious and fragile international hunting has become, how much goes into each hunt, and how much the hunting team depends on tips. So, sharing more has always been rewarding for us.

Again, with no hard and fast rules to make tipping easy, hopefully you are more grounding in the tipping ritual. From here, you will most likely develop your own tipping strategy. 

Contact us today to start planning your next expedition!

CONTACT US