Dar es Salaam, May 26, 2017. Increasing number of internet users across the African continent which reaches over 300 million, representing a penetration rate of 27%, shows a good sign regarding the growth of e-tourism.
That has been revealed through the 2017 Hospitality Report for Africa presented by Jumia Travel, Africa's No.1 hotel booking website. The report claims that mobile technologies and services generated 6.7% of GDP in Africa in 2015 (around USD 150 billion of economic value), and is expected to increase to more than USD 210 billion (7.6% of GDP) by 2020.
Speaking to the press while presenting the report, Jumia Travel Country Manager for Tanzania, Ms. Fatema Dharsee emphasized the company’s confidence in Africa’s potential for growth in terms of e-tourism.
“Jumia Travel sees the invasion of internet among Africans as an opportunity to the growth of various sectors including tourism, which plays a great role in the contribution of national GDP to most countries. For instance, by end of 2015, 46% of the African population (more than half a billion people) subscribed to mobile services. The number of unique subscribers is estimated to reach 725 million by 2020,“ said Ms. Dharsee.
“All those have been a result of the extension of the 4G network to more than half of the African countries, with 72 live LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks in 32 countries by mid-2016. However, its adoption still lags behind the rest of the world with only 20% 4G population coverage,” added the Tanzania Country Manager .
She went further to explain that currently, the only challenge facing Africans especially in Sub-Saharan Africa is the low level of digital skills which slows the process to mobile internet adoption. As online travel agents, supporting digital literacy among tourism stakeholders in the continent is therefore an essential element in promoting e-tourism in Africa.
Currently, apart from revealing the 2017 Hospitality Report for Africa to Tanzanians, Jumia Travel is running a campaign dubbed ‘Democratize Travel’ aimed to provide Africans freedom of travelling within and out of their destinations at affordable rates.
“Our main focus is to break travel barriers including lowering costs especially for accommodation, access to information and better quality services to everyone. Also, through this campaign we want to showcase and expose the hidden beauty of the African continent as well as provide solutions to all needs for our customers such as the procedures, accommodation, food and activities to go where they want to go,” said Ms. Dharsee.
“The campaign also wants to change the attitude that destinations in Western world (Europe and America) and Dubai are better than Africa. Apart from facilitating Africans with easy accommodation and travel services within their boundaries, we are going also to open-up the outbound destinations to them. In this case a traveler will be able to book and pay for his/her flight ticket, for example from Dar es Salaam to London, via local currency. All those are possible with our website whereby a travel can book a hotel and flight ticket at the same time without a hustle of searching from one company’s website to another,” added the company’s Country Manager.
However, the campaign will not only benefit customers but also hoteliers as well through the visibility of their hotels which they are going to receive to enhance business growth. Hoteliers will be benefited from the massive visibility through the company’s website and social media platforms, provide them with technology to simplify operation of their businesses such as Extranet, SMS/Emails as well as encouraging provision and improvement of quality services to obtain better review scores.
Explaining on how Jumia Travel facilitates easy operations of hotels, the Deputy General Manager of Hong Kong Hotel at Dar es Salaam city center, Mr. Mganja Suleiman said that, “Joining Jumia Travel has benefited our hotel a lot. First of all, the marketing and visibility activities of our property has increased within and outside the boundaries of Tanzania. Hence, increased coverage of our services as you all know, marketing and advertising need a substantial capital in terms of execution which I am quite sure a few hotels can manage that. Apart from that, through their website our customers can visit, browse and book rooms without contacting us directly as well as leaving comments and reviews on our services.”
“To a greater extent this online platform has been a pushing force for us to keep on providing quality services and keep on doing regular improvements so as to stay competitive. All in all, I would like to also commend on the good job they are doing especially by introducing to us technologies which help in facilitating easy operations of our hotel. For instance, Jumia Travel’s Extranet plays a great role in simplifying hotel or reservation managers to receive bookings wherever and whenever they are. This system is not only accessed through our computers but also on tablets and smartphones. Now I don’t need to be at the front desk at the hotel to receive customers’ bookings, I can do that right here via my phone. Lastly but not least, this system provides us an opportunity to review the number and type of customers who regularly use our services, hence to know what and where to improve our services so as to meet their expectations,” concluded Mr. Suleiman.
BELOW IS THE LINK TO ACCESS 2017 HOSPITALITY REPORT
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