Ralph Tamuno is the Deputy Managing Director of Wakanow, Nigeria’s foremost online travel agency. In this exclusive interview with Jumoke Akiyode, he talks about how the technology company which plays in Nigeria’s travel and tourism space is able to thrive in spite of recorded reduction in passenger traffic and how technology is helping the company achieve its plans for global expansion. Excerpts
Wakanow came into Nigeria at a time when e-commerce was not very popular, how was the company able to survive and convince people to trust an online travel agency?
When we started our e-commerce site in 2008, we took our time to do a research on the market and build the technology that would serve this market. While building technology, we were also able to give solutions to hotel booking not just flights, so we understood what the customers needed first. As a pioneer in the e-commerce space, you are going to do some things that are out of the norm and see resistance from people who would say this is not the way we are used to doing things, but if they see a better offer and we can give them better service first, good pricing second and after sales support, then they would start seeing the need for it, and that’s what we did. Imagine just seeing yourself, wanting to travel to London and you have physically drive from your office to a travel company or airline office with all the Lagos traffic, then you have to queue up. What Wakanow did was to break that long wait and we built a platform that is world standard and can give you exactly what you need, the best route, best package and all that and people started understanding how much easier they could get these things done. Although we initially had some issues with payment gateways where we had to work with interswitch, because when we gave them our idea, they already had a platform but not one that was as robust as what we hoped would do the work for us. So we worked with them and we were able to get the final service. After that, we have done many other things with the banks, technology partners and I think e-commerce is here to stay in Nigeria and in Africa.
Do you think the advent of technology, availability of internet and high Smartphone ownership has in some way hindered your operations, as people can now be their own travel agent by doing everything themselves online?
Technology only makes you skilled. If you say a travel company has a shop, they can only take a particular amount of people at a time, but with technology there are unlimited options. The key thing is how you streamline your operations to make sure that the customers are being fulfilled. Wakanow offers after sales services to make sure that you have no problems with your flight, hotel, visa application, airport transfers, pickups and drop offs etc. You have to make sure that your operations are streamlined to take care of that. While technology can give you 2,000 transactions a day, you do not necessarily need 2,000 people to deal with them. The smart way to do things is to go to one site where you get a wide variety of travel options to choose from and now we even offer a better payment option where you don’t have to pay for your whole holiday at once with “Wakanow pay small small” option. Wakanow exists because we aggregate everybody’s information. Everyone goes to Google to do a search, why don’t they just go on the particular company’s webpage to search? Because the company would only give you the information they wish to let out, but on Google, everything said about that product or company online can be found. The smartest way to do things is to go to where you can get all the necessary information you need. It doesn’t stop at just booking that flight ticket and hotel, because if you have a problem, you still have to go back to the company or the airport. This is where we bridge those gaps. What Wakanow has done over the past 2-3 years is to spread over the country, such that those people that still feel that they need to talk to somebody, or create trust with the company they are dealing with will still have Wakanow near them. We are far ahead of the traditional hotel or airline website when it comes to technology because that is our core business. We are a technology company in the travel space.
As a tech start up, how easy was it for Wakanow to get funding?
Nigerian banks are a no go area for startups who seek initial funding for their business. As a technology startup, you have to have the right product and the right people and then you need to look for venture capitalists or angel investors. However, in this part of the world, our environment is not enabling, and we also have to consider reputational issues. People are scared to invest because sadly, Nigerian’s are known for fraudulent things and we need to change that narrative. We got our first funding from foreign investors who saw our interview on CNBC in 2010 and decided to put money into our business.
How would technology help you achieve your plans for global expansion?
Technology is an enabler. We recently launched operations in the UK because we have been able to see that people need our services there. We have people in the UK that want to holiday in Africa and they need help with local transfers, security and all that and we noticed that the airlines there do not have any arrangements with the local African carriers. Without technology, we would not have been able to help them bridge that gap.
With reduction in passenger traffic last year, how has Wakanow coped with the situation of less people travelling?
Surprisingly, Wakanow has gotten more customers even with the recession. This is because more people are looking for better value for their money. So while the market is shrinking, our market share is increasing, because we are offering customers the best options. In times of hardship or in times of economic downturn, people look out for smarter way to do business and to travel. The question on people’s lips is how I can achieve this same thing I was doing 2 years ago but with cheaper options. Remember that Nigerians are very resourceful people and when they see that Wakanow is offering ‘pay small small’, better comparison and better deals, they’ll see the need to use the platform because people still need to travel for various reasons.
What special offers or services is Wakanow offering travelers who wish to explore local destinations within the country as opposed to international routes?
We do holiday packages within Nigeria and we also work with local hotels to do weekend getaways, but you have to understand that traveling outside Africa is easy, but traveling inside Africa is difficult and travelling inside Nigeria is even more difficult because accessibility issues. The most accessible places in this world get the highest travel. Ease if getting visa, frequency of flights, amount of people that can pass through their airports daily are all important factors for a country to get tourism traffic. Is it going to be more difficult to get to Zanzibar, a beautiful destination in Tanzania Africa than to travel to Dubai? It is much easier to get to Dubai because it is a straight 6-7 hours flight from Nigeria and you get the Visa and pass through immigration easily, but to get to Zanzibar, you either go with Ethiopian airways from Nigeria, stop at Adisababa, wait for some hours and then take the next flight to Zanzibar or you go with Kenya Airways, stop in Nairobi for some hours before you board another flight to Zanzibar. In doing all this, you realise that accessibility is a key for customers. How do Nigerian tourists get to Obudu in Calabar? It is tough and strenuous journey, you fly into Calabar and you have to get transportation, either by road which is quite dangerous or by a short flight. Once we can create accessibility and government creates infrastructure like good airports, good roads and railway systems, then Nigerians will begin to explore destinations in the country. Nobody cares about making money from tourism in Nigeria because there is oil and gas.
