Bridget Gomez

Once upon a time, the business trip followed a simple script: airport, taxi, boardroom, hotel room, room service, repeat. Leisure, if it appeared at all, arrived in the form of a minibar peanut or a half-hearted stroll past the lobby fountain. Those days, it seems, are officially over.

There are worse places to spend a year than the eastern edge of Zambia’s South Luangwa Valley. There are also easier places to run a business. Lion Camp sits in a landscape that looks benign until it isn’t. It sells silence, space, wildlife and a particular idea of Africa that wealthy travellers still seem prepared to pay for. It also operates in a part of the world where water stops flowing, supply chains wobble, and there is no margin for sentimentality. In 2025, the valley dried.

The decorations come down. Credit card statements go up. The beach feels too far away. And somewhere in the northern hemisphere, a marketing consultant decided the third Monday of the month should be known as “Blue Monday”, allegedly the most depressing day of the year. Accor has decided not to argue the science. It is simply changing the colour.