Glampings.com, a Dutch online booking platform for glamping holidays, agreed to acquire Conservio, a booking site for nature and safari accommodation in Southern Africa, Emerce reported on 23 July 2026.
The price was not disclosed. Conservio's roughly 1,000 listings, which range from safari lodges in private reserves to remote eco-retreats and campsites in South Africa, Namibia and neighbouring countries, will move under the Glampings.com brand. Emerce reported that existing bookings will continue unchanged.
The acquisition gives Glampings.com a new segment and a new region at once. Until now it has focused on Europe.
What Conservio built
Conservio was launched in 2020 by chief executive Lara Dendy Young and chief product officer Justin Rijnberg. It runs a curated online marketplace for stays in nature across Southern Africa, working with local accommodation owners and focusing on travel that supports conservation. Its listings have included cabins, farm stays, tented camps, lodges and villas.
When it raised money in January 2025, the company listed more than 500 stays across South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia and said it planned to grow to more than 2,000. By the time of the Glampings.com deal it had about 1,000 accommodations on the platform.
The 2025 funding was meant to pay for that growth, for improvements to the booking experience and for tools to help small eco-tourism businesses run their properties. Dendy Young said at the time that the company chose accommodation that offered good travel experiences while also supporting conservation and the communities around it.
Why Glampings.com is buying
Glampings.com was founded by Sven Schuurmans and Tom Groenen, who have more than 30 years of combined experience in travel, online marketing and e-commerce. The multilingual platform lists about 4,500 accommodations across 18 European countries.
Emerce described the Conservio purchase as a fast route into both safari-style travel and a new continent. Adding Conservio's inventory increases the Glampings.com catalogue by roughly a fifth and gives European travellers who already use the site a way to book Southern African nature stays in the same place.
Emerce's headline described the deal as a further expansion for Glampings.com, but the report did not name any earlier acquisitions by the company. Glampings.com did not say whether it planned to add more destinations outside Europe after Southern Africa, or whether Conservio's local team in South Africa would continue to manage relationships with lodge and camp owners.
The founders and the funding
Conservio raised a $500,000 pre-seed round in March 2023, with Payfast founder Jonathan Smit among the backers. In January 2025 it raised a $1 million seed round led by E4E Africa, with Volve Capital, Living Hope Ventures and Smit also investing, Launch Base Africa reported. That brought reported funding to about $1.5 million.
South African business site Bizcommunity reported the seed round as R19 million (about $1 million) and described it as the company's second funding round. Volve Capital co-founder Joost Bijlsma said when the round closed that Conservio was well placed to grow while driving meaningful change, and co-founder Justin Rijnberg said demand for independent travel within Africa was growing quickly.
At the time of the seed round, E4E managing partner Bas Hochstenbach said the company was creating jobs in rural areas and supporting conservation. Neither company disclosed Conservio's headcount or revenue, or what roles the founders will take after the deal.
What happens to travellers and hosts
Conservio's listings will be offered under the Glampings.com brand, and bookings already made will be honoured on their original terms, according to Emerce. The companies did not say when the Conservio website would be folded into Glampings.com.
For lodge and camp owners in Southern Africa, the deal means access to the European customer base of Glampings.com. Nature-based travel has been a target for specialist booking sites that compete with general platforms by curating smaller, often remote properties.
