As the founder and CEO of Travelwings, Africa’s leading online travel agency, Albert Fernando’s dream is to create new job opportunities in travel and e-commerce across the continent.
“There are 1.2b people, 60% aged below 25 and apart from Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius and South Africa, there are no real online platforms. How can we facilitate that? We want to be the market leader to transform things.”
Fernando, who himself started as a reservations staff at the age of 17 at Dnata, Dubai, eventually ending up as its global head of e-commerce, founded Travelwings in 2016 under the auspices of the travel conglomerate, Satguru Travel Group.
Albert Fernando: ““You need local payments, local call centres, local pricing.”
Since its founding by chairman Anil Chandirani in Kigali, Rwanda in 1989, Satguru has grown into a travel network covering more than 70 countries worldwide, and has interests in corporate travel, a B2B consolidator (Toptraveltrip.com), destination management (it acquired Orient Tours, a DMC in Dubai) as well as online travel through Travelwings.
Fernando said Travelwings is now present in 32 countries, 27 of which are in Africa, “and we are the number one OTA in at least 19 of them, with local payment solutions.”
For him, local payment solutions is the door opener to the African continent. It offers local payment solutions in a string of countries, including Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
“You need local payments, local call centres, local pricing,” he said.
Citing Morocco as an example, which has a 2.5% credit card penetration, he said Travelwings had to integrate with four exchange houses so that customer who book on their site could pay cash at the exchange house. “They then get a receipt, the API is linked to our booking engine and the customer receives the ticket.
“It took us a while to get this right, the learning curve was long and steep but we are now integrated with 17 banks across 27 countries.”
He said given Africa’s complexity, “only some players can do it”.
And with Satguru’s global network and resources behind it, Travelwings is well placed to spread, well, its wings.
“I have always loved emerging markets,” he said. “There is no point building up a big brand in developed markets, you are just poaching customers from A to B. I am more about creating new markets and travellers.
“Take Nigeria, for example. This market has 200m people and less than 2.5m travellers and they all go to UK, US and Dubai – and it’s hard for them to get visa to these places. If we educate the consumers, and give them access to affordable travel, we can increase the travel landscape.”
Travelwings first entered Africa in 2017, with Nigeria as the market of entry. “Africa has always been our focus. We believe we can grow the travel market from a $9.8b market to $18b. There are lots of opportunities.”
He added, “We also need to get people exposed to Africa as a destination – Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, so many beautiful destinations.”
And it all starts with digitization, he said, which is what Travelwings is investing in – to build the tech infrastructure across its markets. Africa accounts for 80% of Travelwings’ total business.
It has a team of 100 people working across 32 countries, and the number includes call centre staff. “We are lean and mean, we are a self-funded business so we are cautious about costs. And we have the best team, veterans who believe in the vision.”
The biggest risk is around trust. “There’s a lot of fraud, and so we have to build the brand around trust.”
And again, payments is the door opener to this. “Failure rates were more than 65% and we had to develop an operational ecosystem to address this, reduce the risks and earn trust of consumers.”
Each market is different. “South Africa is a domestic market – 60%, while East Africa is 65% international, less than 10% domestic and the rest inter-Africa. North Africa is 35% domestic (Morocco) with most business coming from Europe.
“The biggest growth story is pan-African and I am encouraged by airlines such as South African Airways and Kenya Airways joining hands, and more than 27 low cost carriers have emerged in the region, some with two or three aircraft.”
After having survived the pandemic “in which we sold everything from sanitisers to courier services”, as well as help with the repatriation of the Indian diaspora, Fernando is focusing on transforming the company. “We did not let go of anyone and spent time preparing for the recovery. We are now ready to go like never before.”
It will step up its payment solutions and merchandising in the first quarter. “When people book travel in Africa, they don’t even book hotel except in South Africa. We are trying to bring in ancillary products, as well as NDC connectivity.”
He added, “It’s all about education, building trust and increasing inter-African capacity.”
Note: Albert Fernando will be speaking at the first WiT Africa in Cape Town, March 14-15. Check programme here.
Source link : https://www.webintravel.com/travelwings-now-in-27-african-countries-seeks-to-transform-continent/
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Publish date : 2024-02-08 08:00:00
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