Hi,
PeterV welcome to these forums. Could you tell me how they find out what the "international market" is?
I wonder if the figure of 7000 hunters per annum includes the people that do unofficial side-trips as add ons to business/holidays and just borrow a gun for a few days etc.
Certainly, the squeeze should prompt game farms to 'diversify' and maybe offer new types of safari at competitive rates.

Some silly questions: What do we attribute the dollars slide against the Rand to? I have not seen anything that tells me the RSA economy is in such wonderful shape. Is this an "artificial" condition? Does anybody think we will go back to what was a super favorable sexhange of not too long ago?

The dollar/rand will be at 1 to 5.5 shortly. It will affect hunt pricing. I think you'll see more hunts priced in euros or rands.

The slide has nothing to do with other currencies. It has to do with our own deficit. It also has to do with our economy. The lower our currency value is, the more exports we can sell to other countries. It is good for our economy in that respect. Bad when you want to spend money outside of the US. There is much more to it than this and I am sure some others will add their knowlege.

Looking at the broader picture it's worth noting that the South African economy is doing particularly well at present with inflation under control and a few interest rate cuts already gone through. The local retailers are expecting a bumper festive season and our economists and stock exchange brokers are all very "bullish" on the prospects going forward. The Rand is at ZAR5.82 to USD1.00 at present which obviousley means very little margin to RSA folk reliant on bringing in Dollars based revenues. Game prices are curently over inflated and the drought conditions that are prevalent in some areas will add further dynamics to trophy pricing.

As for the "Hunters worth $$$$$" there is no dispute as to the contribution that the 7000 "official" foreign hunters made to our GDP of late. What is not mentioned is that these numbers are down from last year and that the average for the preceeding few years has been at about 4500 per annum and, that the RSA's total share of the international market is approx 0,03% for a variety of reasons.

At present there are approx. 9000 to 10000 game hunting areas available in RSA versus a buying market of approx. 7000 foreign hunters - it is obvious that the laws of supply and demand ala Economics 101 will dictate prices for the 2005 / 2006 seasons.

Being in the game so to speak the economics of the hunting industry are close to my heart (and well being) so believe me when I say that we watch these indicators very closely and base our business decisions accordingly. There will be good hunts available at good prices - it's simply a case of getting to reputable outfitters that are serious about sustaining their business interests over the long term.

Oh boy, will that figure drop now the silly new firearms act is in place!!

We have been running a trade deficit for god knows how long. That means there is a net flow of dollars outside the country.

Those dollars come back to the US when foreign investors buy US real estate, stocks, bonds, T bills, etc.

The stock market has been flat for a while; T bills yield nothing because the Fed has lowered rates. So what happens? Econ 101 - too many sellers and not enough buyers. Ergo, the dollar falls.

We used to own a house in Perth Australia. When we sold it we kept the money in cash in OZ at 5.5% because I knew the dollar would have to fall. It is one of the few times I called that one right. Mrs AZWriter told me tonight that the Aus dollar is now .78/US.

Boghossian - the "size" of international market is based on the number of active hunters per country, this is published in a variety of places eg. SCI's annual reports, the World Forum for Shooting Sports reports etc - their numbers reflect active hunters based on tags issued; dividing that number by the 7000 that visited RSA equals 0,03 percent.

Furthermore, the 7000 hunters number is based on the returns submitted by each outfitter e.g. if I or any other outfitter take a client to hunt in Natal, I complete my Hunting register and submit a copy to the Natal authorities who in turn count that as 1 hunter, the same applies to all 9 provinces in the RSA. Statistical problems come in when one outfitter takes the same client to hunt across several provinces - he fills in several registers and each province counts the hunter as one unique person leading to double counting - the cynic in me suggests that the "7000" number published is probally a little overstated for these reasons. The number however does not include any "side trips" which do take place.

PS - thanks for the welcome to the board - I've been a member since Saeed got in going a few years back - as I recall, a change in BB software used to run the forums impacted a lot of members who lost their post counts and now show as "new members"

Steve - the numbers will no doubt be impacted by the new firearms regs - until such time the correct information is disseminated to the hunting community - just watch the views on this board on going to Nambia instead of RSA! Which is why I operate across the entire southern African region

Despite the fall, I am confident RSA will remain the most popular overseas hunting destination for a while yet! As long as regulations are followed by BOTH hunters/officials, they cannot stop you hunting.
I wouldn't think too much of the 'global hunting population' as a market as this number (some say 45 million) includes lots of 'weekend hunters' and 'farmer/hunters' that wouldn't dream of hunting abroad or paying daily rates etc.
The number of hunters that are really willing to travel the world and pay hard cash for quality hunting is quite small in the scheme of things...lots of competition as you say!