Marek Zmyslowski is the managing director of Jovago.com who left Poland for Nigeria, in 2013, to launch the platform, an online hotel booking service.
Before joining Africa Internet Holding, Zmyslowski, successfully co-founded and exited online ventures in Poland.
He is an internet geek, fashion enthusiast, and sports addict.
He is also a former snowboard instructor, holding a racing license. In this interview with peter ugwu, he explained the drive behind the concept and how it can benefit the Nigerian tourism space.

Jovago.com Entrance into Nigerian Market
We actually launched in August last year. Before that we had couple of months of preparations. I can gladly say that we are growing very fast because the market has the opportunity to develop now.
We started as an online traveling agency that secures online booking for Nigerian travelers. And we launched in Nigeria, we have been able to grow and launched Senegal, Kenya, and even in Pakistan.
That is where our hubs are. Presently, we have Jovago represented in sixteen sub-Saharan African. We focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, largely because the demonstration and experience we had in Pakistan with similar experience; for instance, Nigeria.
These countries share similar challenges and opportunities. Also, we want Jovago to be a strong African brand and help in developing Sub-Saharan Africa as destination for (business) tourism.

Steps Taken by Jovago to Promote Tourism
There are so many ways to promote tourism industry. We are focusing a particular area of our strength. What we can see in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria in particular, though a huge number, but the number of hotels are growing by the day.
Just last year, in Nigeria, international hotel chains signed contracts to build more hotels in the country than in any country in the world. Suffice it to say that Nigeria has become the largest hospitality market in the world.
At the same time, there are many hotels operating in the country that have been focused on corporate travelling arrangement, but with growing competition they have started to lose customers.
They do not understand what is going on; therefore, they have to wake up, re-strategize and embrace individual customers, welcome customer service, additional services and work on new ways to find customers.
This is where Jovago comes in to place. Of course, we have growing interest among international travelers coming in and going out of Africa, coupled with the growing number of hotels. The problem is, it has not been easy for the customer to find the hotel.
So, we come into place. We built and inventory of hotels in Africa, verified and put them online. We have the descriptions and did the reviews and to whoever is looking for hotels online, we give him the inventory has can trust, because getting a befitting hotel at a choice location, sometimes gets complicated.
It is like having many companies in one place; many restaurants, nightclubs and the rooms. Then, the hotels have to think of getting customer’s attention.
So, it is hard for the hotel managers to keep up with technology. In the traveling industry technology has changed, in a tremendous way, how customers behave. Before now, people never believed they can buy flight ticket from the mobile phone. This is changing very rapidly and hotels are finding it difficult to cope; but we know the business and the online marketing. Thus, we provide the platform to reach out to customers, and that is one way to promote tourism.

Jovago’s Important Role in the Market
There are two major things that differentiate us from other national and international players. First, we have the biggest inventory of hotels in Africa. Just in Nigeria, we have more than 5,000 hotels and in Africa, we have over 20,000 others and 200,000 worldwide.
Secondly, we are different from any African traveling agency, because every hotel on our platform was physically verified by our staff.
Someone went there, met with the hotel manager, shake hands, discussed the corporation, signed a copy of the agreement, get to know the staff, saw the rooms, restaurants; made the pictures, and wrote the descriptions. So, this is the guarantee: whatever you see on the website is that you will feel physically when you actually lodge into the hotel.

Advertisement

Dealing With Dishonest Partners (Hotels)
If we discover that, probably, after our visitations, did the reviews and signs an agreement, the hotel management fails to retain the standard, we take actions. In extreme cases, such hotel gets deleted from the platform immediately.
But that could have happened, probably, just once since we launched. Every hotel gets reviews, which is important for them, because when you run a business, may be you are going bankrupt, the reason is: you do not know why.
Sometimes, you are getting more customers or losing them, you do not know why. Every time a customer visits the hotel we get a feedback such as the likes and dislikes over the services.
We pass the comments to the hotel; this is why the growing number of reviews is very important to the customer. It helps both the customer to make decisions and the hotel management to improve on their services.
Essentially, trust is an important aspect of any thing (business) that has to do with online. You wouldn’t make payments with your credit cards if there was no trust. The whole banking system in the whole world is based on trust. It is not easy to convince an African customer to pay online. Nevertheless, we cannot force our customers to shun it.
We can only keep promoting activities that will attract their focus and give them opportunity for trial. By the time they succeed, trust is being built.
There was a customer that booked a hotel (online) under Jovago, that was his first experience on anything that as to do with online transaction. He had positive experience and continued. That was very important for us. Aside the verification as a unique selling proposition of Jovago, our customer service is very strategic.
It may sound boring or unfounded, but it is true that in Nigeria, such as banks, in fact, big companies, customer service has not been given adequate attention. While it is improving, there are areas to be addressed.
You can compare what we do with international big players like Booking.com; everything is fully automated. Of course, the booking process is very simple. As the customer books online, our customer service starts, because we will keep in touch with both parties (the hotel & the customer).
We will make sure you remember about the booking a day or two to the very date; make sure you have a taxi, for example from the airport. We will also assist in you locating the hotel via a map. Then, while you are there, if you wouldn’t mind, we will send you an email.

Jovago/Lufthansa
As a way of expatiating on the programme; we are an online booking platform, providing cheap, fast and convenience and safety.
But in Nigeria, only about five percent of all the hotel rooms available are booked online. People still prefer to call or go through a travel agency or take the risk of going to a city, sit back in a taxi and tell the driver to get him somewhere, thinking there will be a free room.
That, to me, is very stressful. If you do not know there is an opportunity to book online, of course, you will not seize the opportunity.
We are doing a lot of offline activities in a way of brand awareness marketing processes, just to communicate to our customers there is a place called Jovago.com.
We do not know if the potential customer will need the hotel now or in a month time. But the time he needs a hotel, he will remember Jovago. Therefore, we came up with an idea to organize a competition in partnership with Lufthansa airlines, a big and reliable company too. We intend giving, for instance couples, romantic getaways, etc.

Bringing Remaining 95% Hotels In Nigeria Online
Yes, it is possible, just that it will take some time. The reason is that there are no short cuts. It requires a lot of offline marketing activities, direct contact with the customers. Meanwhile, we need to understand the habit of the potential customers.
So, we go to conferences, talk to people and help them book for the first time. It is a time consuming activity, but we have the opportunity to get their attention.
The first time experience is always good for them embrace the platform. This course is something most hotels didn’t plan for while they were setting up.
For instance, we are an online company but we do a lot of offline activities too. We have to visit the hotel, plan your logistics and we have to be proactive too.

Jovago Partnership with UNICEF
This is our approach; being in Africa and doing business in Africa entails Africa gives you so many opportunities. You hire people and eventually grow your business. We feel responsible to give back.
Of course, when you hire someone and pay him salary, it is like feeding the entire people in the home, but we feel that this is not enough.
We have seen cases where very ambitious people get trapped on the way because when they were born, probably, somebody or circumstances made it that he was not registered; he was not issued a birth certificate. Such problem can limit someone success.
So, we decided on this.
We cannot do change everyone, but we can make a difference in this area. If everyone does something differently, a lot of things will change.
As people book for hotels, they can add a token of about $5 to UNICEF. We will help to collect the money and send to UNICEF for distribution to countries for help increase the rate of issuance of birth certificate to which ever child is born.

Market Share in Nigeria
It is really hard to say because the competitors do not share their numbers with us. And we do not like to share it with them too, because we are at the early level and every company would want to protect itself.
However, I can boldly say that we have been seeing month-to-month growth in traffic; it is a two digit number.
But this can be sustainable if we will be focused on online marketing activities. The online is not all that big yet; we have to create market for ourselves. To be honest, I think when other players enter the market; it will boost the market too.
How? First, it makes you think. Every time you would want to improve on your services and the customers will feel better. It is like a race; when you run a lone, you may not run as when you have ten people around. Secondly, we are at the stage where the market is not rated. It is still the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of offline activities, but we are building the market.

Advertisement

Promoting ePayment through Online Hotel Booking
We are actually partnering some card companies who are willing to offer discount to their cardholders who would want to use the e-payment channels to book for their hotels. We are in partnership with two international and two local payment operators.
We have an e-payment integrator on our website that meets international standards in terms of cyber security. Since we started, we have not recorded any case of fraud. We try to communicate the obvious advantages when you book online.
It is faster, simpler and very much comfortable. We build the trust by ensuring everything is secured. By paying online, you need not carry cash.
We make sure the hotel is paid and no one will harass you on arrival. Most importantly, you get discount for booking online. For a company like Jovago, when we deal with cash, we have to process it. This is one of the ultimate reasons the Nigerian financial sector is promoting cashless society; dealing with cash costs so much money.