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TOURISM MARKETING: GOING ONLINE from more traditional hosts that were There have been used to booking holiday rentals in a specific way; hotels that had very set great strides in booking policies and first-time hosts connectivity who just needed a simplified approach. So we make it easy for hotels to list their empty beds and, because we don’t charge a listing fee, we’ve been able to gather together an impressive or on a dhow in Zanzibar, they can quickly collection of unique and affordable confirm a booking or respond to a traveller’s accommodation options. request. The new SleepOut.com was also Our team makes a huge effort to keep built with responsive design in mind so our processes and technology flexible that hosts can manage their listings and to make SleepOut.com as inclusive as travellers can book their accommodation possible. We also stay in constant contact from a smartphone, tablet or desktop with with our hosts to capture feedback on the same user experience. the platform. Keeping a healthy balance between What advice would you give The lee t.co anage ent tea fro left : Chief Technical ffcer Pa l chwar Chief erating ffcer ik l hah C ohann enson satisfied travellers and happy hosts is entrepreneurs who want to start an complex. SleepOut.com is particularly online business in Africa? lucky that our core suppliers are also On a global scale the level of competition our biggest fans and they seem to truly is higher than anyone can possibly What motivated you to start believe in and derive great benefit from imagine, so even if you’re growing SleepOut.com? We focus on capturing the product. a product regionally you must think how When I moved to Kenya five years ago I accommodation it fits in with global market leaders in spent a lot of time in Lamu (a small island inventory How has your website been received? your industry. Being an entrepreneur off the coast) where I built a hobby site We started our Kenyan pilot site – anywhere in the world is a challenge, about the island. I started providing travel SleepOut.co.ke – with just a few hundred but the essential quality that makes up advice but I soon found myself renting hosts last June. We now work with all of these entrepreneurs is the ability out some of the most spectacular holiday approximately 2 000 hosts and have to convert challenges into opportunities. homes and hotels. How do you market SleepOut.com? processed over 30 000 booking requests When we decided to scale the We haven’t changed our marketing tactics from 15 000-odd users. With the launch Has Internet security been a challenge? company, websites like Airbnb and much since we began on Lamu Island. of SleepOut.com we expect to offer at Credit card fraud in its more basic form Booking.com (both travel accommodation We decided early on to focus our attention least 5 000 accommodation options in hovers around 5%. We work with a reliable sites) were taking off like crazy in the on capturing supply or accommodation 10 countries. payment service provider that handles United States and Europe. I thought this inventory to provide travellers with the all our fraud detection and, although they would be a great opportunity to take largest and most diverse accommodation Has a lack of Internet connectivity pass these costs down to us in the form our team’s hospitality experience in offering in the region. been a challenge to starting a Web- of higher transaction fees, payment fraud developing countries and use our Chief Traditional online travel agents based business? is not really an issue for us because of the Technical Officer, Paul Schwarz, to build generally repackage the same database Three years ago Internet coverage was nature of our bookings. a more powerful platform that adapted of accommodation and spend upwards certainly lacking, but much has changed. SleepOut only pays out accommodation the best traits from the most successful of 60% of their revenue on marketing. There have been great strides made in hosts after guests check in. With just booking businesses – starting in Africa Instead of integrating with these terms of connectivity, not only in East small checks like this we are able to and the Middle East. distribution systems, we focused instead Africa but across the continent, and we pretty much avoid most forms of fraud. on supply and inbound marketing. Our see this as an opportunity rather than This is also one of the reasons travellers How have you financed your business? users and editorial team generate and a challenge. In the last quarter of 2012 prefer to use the SleepOut platform rather We raised US$200 000 in seed capital in curate high-quality unique content that there was an 80% increase in Kenyan than confirming their booking direct with 2012 and we are in the middle of raising a adds value for travellers trying to find a Internet users. accommodation hosts. ‘Series A’ round at the moment. Much of great deal and a unique place to stay. The prevalence of mobile use and the PHOTOS: GETTY/GALLO IMAGES, SUPPLIED our growth occurred with incredibly few growing number of smartphone users What are your long-term goals? resources and we are only now planning How did you convince service in the region also represents another big We want to offer a best-in-class service to to ramp up quickly to activate the new providers to get on board with a new opportunity. Our inventory management millions of users; we aim to become market SleepOut.com marketplace in more than digital venture? relies on SMS pings to hosts. So even leaders in 15 to 20 countries across Africa 30 countries. At first there was a lot of apprehension if a host is in the Maasai Mara on safari and the Middle East. 24 strategicmarketingafrica First quarter 2014 First quarter 2014 strategicmarketingafrica 25