South Africa Safari Honeymoon; agents all flocking to the same spots, or am I not finding the right agents?

Hi all. I'm going to admit from the start; I am here because I needed a place to vent 😀
So; my sincere apologies! But I hope you can help me out…

To describe the issue; my wife and I are accommodation providers in Kruger area. We're originally from EU but have been in the area full time for more than 10 years now. We are both accredited nature guides and have worked in multiple lodges, in different private reserves, before starting our own. We also managed a lodge outside the "big 5 area".

Iin the bush you work 6 weeks full time and then you're off for 2 weeks. Since it was too expensive for us to fly to EU every 6 weeks, and since working in a safari lodge means entertaining guests from early morning until late in the evening, we always used our 2 weeks off for some quality "alone time". And we noticed something; as a couple, it's hard to find places outside park/reserve boundaries that offer decent privacy. It seemed to us that accommodation providers either did not trust their customers or they were just unaware that privacy is something that guests would appreciate.

I could give so many examples! One time we found a cottage right next to the Olifants River on Ndlovumsi estate, but it turned out to be located in the garden of the owners and their deck was literally next to ours. Another time we found ourselves deep in the forest of Magoebaskloof, in an awesome cottage …with a spice garden right next to it, and staff tending to it and looking at us during all daytime hours. And then there were the lots of times we opted for a short-term rental on the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate, places with a private splash pool. These were all disappointments. The building plots are rather small there, and every time our privacy was "invaded" by the prying eyes of a neighbor.

This surprised us. We managed some lodges on the private reserves that had a "honeymoon suite". Such suites are super expensive. We're talking USD 500 per person and up, sometimes double that. They are always luxurious, and almost always have an outside area that offers 100% privacy. Those outside areas were off-limits to staff members when the guests were "home". Why on earth was such accommodation not available outside the private reserves? Was there no market for it? That could not be the answer. Surely not every newlywed couple has a budget of USD 1000 per night!

Long story short; it seemed like we had found our "niche", the "gap in the market" we had been looking for! Since we couldn't find such accommodation, we decided to build it! To describe our place a bit; we are on our own 35Ha farm (pure bush, only plains game), we are located close to the Panorama Route, the Blyde Canyon, and Kruger NP (but also offer game drives on private reserves). We offer large and luxurious cottages that have king size beds in a bedroom with aircon, and our outside areas come with a 100% visual privacy guarantee. All decks offer an amazing view (we are right underneath the escarpment) and have an outside rainshower and a splash pool. We also wanted to appeal to both self-drivers and the all-in crowd, so our cottages can be had as "accommodation only" (they have a fully equipped kitchen) and with all activities and meals (or transfers to the best restaurants) included. I hope that I can also say we are reasonably priced. In self-catering mode a cottage costs about USD 85 per person per night.

Now before you think; "hang on this is pure marketing" …let me assure you it is not! I'm not going to mention the name of our place. And I needed to "set the scene" before I can come to the "rant" part of my post. Here goes…

Our lodge is going OK. But if I look at who is flocking to us …it's local city-folks booking a weekend get-away, It's the self-catering crowd, using our place as a base to explore the area. It's retired folks. There's even the occasional naturists (some told me after their stay). It's all kinds of people, from all around the world, from all walks of life, and from all races. There's only one type of customer that's largely missing;

NEWLYWEDS!
The one type of customer we thought we'd appeal to the most!

We've been wondering why that is. So we dug a little deeper. Seems the few Honeymooners we get come from various online booking platforms. There's literally none that come from travel agencies. Zero! Even though TA's do send us guests regularly.

How come? I thought; maybe it's because the TA's that work with us are not focusing specifically on that "market segment". I know there are TA's that specialize in Honeymoons, and so I Googled them and had a look on their sites, to see what they offer, and to see if our accommodation would fit.

And now comes the rant!

On their websites, when I go to the South Africa / Safari sections, literally all of them have this one private reserve on there …a place that is absolutely not the best choice.

Let me explain what I mean;

If you knew that the safari place you booked claimed it was "in the Greater Kruger Area" while in reality it is a reserve that's fenced off from Kruger, would you still have chosen it?

If you knew that this place keeps a predator count way too high for its size, but maintains the health of these predators by releasing hundreds of animals bred in captivity onto the reserve every year, would it still be your choice?

If you knew that this reserve has way too many beds for its size (other private reserves stick to 10 beds/customers per 1000Ha, here it's 50 beds/customers per 1000Ha), resulting in so many vehicles on the road that it interferes with regular animal behavior; would you still have chosen it?

If you knew that almost all guides are juniors that have to stick to silly rules like "don't drive where fence lines are visible or you get a warning" and "don't show guests more than 3 of the big 5 per drive, leave the rest for another game drive", and if you knew as a result that the guiding community refers to this place as "Disneyland", and that junior guides try to avoid being employed there if at all possible …would it still be your choice?

If you knew that because of the high predator density the weakest of predators, their cheetahs, get killed regularly, only to be replaced by "fresh" individuals coming from their own breeding project that is specifically set up to ensure the reserve always has cheetahs to show …would it have been your choice to go there?

If you knew that the owner was sentenced to jail in a court of law, because their breeding project was also used to breed cheetahs for export to the Middle East, where rich folks keep cheetahs as pets, would you still want your money to go to this reserve?

If you knew that this reserve was one of the first to be associated with canned hunting (breeding lions for hunting), a despicable practice that was exposed by a sting operation from the "Cook Report" (SA docu makers) …would you still want to go there and pay about USD 500 pppn?

Now listen… maybe they've improved a few things by now, And maybe I'm just angry because I see this reserve on literally every popular Honeymoon-specialist website. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I didn't dig deep enough and didn't find the TA's that specialize in Honeymoons and that would value a place like mine.

But if that's the case; can anyone in this group please point out the honest TA's to me? Because right now it seems that all top-Google Honeymoon specialists are heartless and soulless salesmen who simply push the box over the counter that grants them the highest commission percentage, without caring what's in the box and what the customer ends up with.

Thank you!