The tourism industry across the world requires water for basic human consumption, irrigation of gardens and golf courses, preparation of food and drinks, making snow for winter sports and general water activities such as swimming or motorised water sports (Gössling et al. 2012). Tourism and more specifically wildlife tourism is a major source of income and livelihood for many rural communities across southern Africa. Many wildlife tourism lodges across southern Africa are in remote locations where little or no infrastructure exists. These lodges are dependent on natural water sources such as rivers, dams and boreholes to provide their water needs. The staff employed at these wildlife lodges often reside on the properties and as a result of the lack of nearby housing, roads and public transportation must be accommodated by the tourism ventures. Lodges as a result make allowance not only for the tourism venture operations but for the domestic water use of staff members. Lodge managers must make sure that enough water is available at an acceptable water quality to meet these needs of both guests and staff. This paper investigated water quantity use at 31 wildlife lodges across southern Africa ; this paper also provided water quantity use baselines and proposes water use benchmarks for the wildlife lodge industry in southern Africa. Keywords: Tourism, water quantity use, water quantity baselines and benchmarks