1 Introduction Over the last ten years the interest in safari travel has exploded. Africa, the home of the safari, has seen a prolific rise in the number of safari lodges and camps and the opening up of new areas developing wildlife tourism as an employment generator for their countries. In Kenya tourism has become the primary source of foreign exchange. With rapid growth in any business sector there can be problems delivering consistently high levels of service, and the rapid propagation of safari accommodation is no exception. Great safari lodges and camps need more than a spectacular location to deliver the magical experience that most safari addicts seek. Management, food, integration with local communities and high standards of guiding are essential, not to mention careful custodianship of the ecology that protects and enriches the wildlife resource that all depend on. It seems that an independent process to evaluate how well safari camps and lodges deliver on these key metrics of the industry is overdue and The Good Safari Guide, together with The Good Safari Guide Awards are the first industry-driven process to recognize and reward the achievements of those safari operators who exceed the expectations of their clients. We believe that the process of selection and the system for choosing the winners provide travel professionals and their clients with an invaluable tool to ' separate the wheat from the chaff' in what is rapidly becoming an overcrowded marketplace. Rosanne Cobb Editor, The Good Safari Guide 2009