Into Africa: Momondo’s early entry into an emerging travelling market
Guest Writers are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the specific writer directly
Amanda Greenwood speaks to founding partner on its expansion
Travel and tourism businesses are currently scrambling to reach travellers from the BRIC nations, eager to cash in the sheer amount of spend and people coming from the countries into others.
Yet for flight and hotel meta-search website Momondo, it’s a case of ‘been there, done that’ and looking forward, well almost certainly for its Russia business. Now the Copenhagen-based business has partnered with media company Nation Media Group to launch a meta-search engine in east and central Africa, known as Twendetwende.
“Everyone laughed at us when we entered Russia because others avoided it due to the difficulties, language and local presence. But we like to do things differently and be the first in these up-coming markets,” Momondo partner Martin Lumbye told Travel Daily UK. “Now we have the same thing in mind with Africa, it is an extremely interesting continent and we are excited to be the first and have this focus on Africa”
While Africa currently has only a handful of OTAs and competition is unlikely to reach that seen in Europe, continued flight connectivity and hotel builds, generated mainly through business travel, will soon see the market develop just as others have.
Although Lumbye suggested the market is already more ‘advanced’ than we might expect. “In some parts of Africa, more have a mobile device or smartphone than a computer or laptop so it is not as behind as many Westerners would think,” he explained. “It’s no secret mobile device use is growing extremely fast and it is one of our major, if not the, focus area of development at Momondo“.
Within the next two years he anticipates most searches or redirects will take place over a mobile device.
