‘Online business is the future for air travel in Nigeria’

Philip Akesson is the Country Manager for Travelstart Nigeria, one of the leading online travel agencies in Nigeria. In an interview with Ifeoma Okeke, he speaks of the prospects and challenges of air travel business and the advantages Travelstart has over other travel agencies in Nigeria. Excerpts

How has the journey been like for you and what have been the challenges since you commenced operations in Nigeria?
Travelstart has been doing business in Nigeria for six years. We are Africa’s largest online travel agency where customers can book their flights easily on www.travelstart.com.ng. We provide access to the best flight deals that can be booked conveniently at anytime, anywhere and paid for using any of our multiple payment options.

During our six years operating in Nigeria, we have grown to become one of the largest and trusted travel agencies in the country. It has been a great journey for me as I manage a fairly small team that is focused on using technology to provide customers with great prices. Simplifying the booking process is a key goal for us as our customers can book their flights themselves without needing to speak to an agent on the phone, they can pay online and receive their ticket through e-mail via the website.

One of the biggest challenge for us was industry related, which is the decline of the naira which occurred a week after I joined the Company in 2016. The prices increased by about 32percent, so there was an initial reduction in sales. However in the following months, we doubled in sales volume and this was because we provided great customer service and products. Another challenge is finding the right talent with the right skills and training. We need to maintain this so that we can continue to grow professionally and keep providing a great customer experience, despite the fast growth that we are seeing. However, we remedy that by providing a lot of training for the staff and having several professionals who are experts within this sector.

What is your staff strength?
Today we have 45 staff, the vast majority of the staff are customer service agents. It is about building trust and reliability through great customer service, even though price is a major reason our customers love us. We are always there to help our customers if their flight is cancelled or if they need to change their ticket. This core focus is what makes us so different from other travel agencies in the market.

The travel narrative is changing now with more airlines increasing frequencies into Nigeria. How is this affecting your sales?
We have definitely seen a growth in sales but it is hard to pinpoint if that growth is due only to the increase in flights frequencies. The increase in frequency does show a positive indication that the Nigerian economy is more stable, which in turn has increased the airlines trust and their investments in the market. For instance, Delta Airlines is commencing a direct Lagos to New York flight in March 2018, RwandAir is also adding more flights and several other airlines are adding more flights and new routes. Some airlines that flew three times into Nigeria before are doing daily now. The market is not like it was two years ago, it has improved and this is good for business.

Prices of tickets from Nigeria to other African countries are very high, compared to prices of tickets within Europe. Why is this so?
The reason why intra Africa travel is so expensive is because of the added taxes per ticket. African countries charge airlines a lot of taxes for landing permits in comparison to what you will see in Europe. For example, on a ticket of a N100,000, you might see that N80,000 represents the taxes and N20,000 is base fare which is used to take care of salaries, aircraft and fuel. So if you look at this, you see that not much goes to the airlines.

Some developments been made to make intra Africa travel to make it easier. Some countries have joined forces through the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) initiative. This should help reduce the taxes as well as provide a much simpler visa process.

How many countries do you operate in?
We have physical offices in South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and Dubai. Travelstart has its headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa and in Nigeria, we have one office in Lagos. But our website is available in many more countries as well such as Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and more.

Which country is your biggest market among the countries you operate in?
South Africa, by far, is our biggest market in sales followed by the Middle East and then Nigeria. In terms of opportunities, Nigeria is a very big market for us. We are still in the growth stage in Nigeria as we have only been here for six years. In terms of potential, only 13% of Nigerian air travelers book travel products online, so there is still a large portion of the market for us to reach. Though only a few book online, online business is the future.
There is no market in the world that I can think of that moved from offline to online and then went back to offline. Online is the trend moving forward.

Now that some foreign airlines have been able to repatriate a good sum of their monies that were stuck in Nigeria, what is the effect of this on your business?
The effect of this is that the foreign airlines now have more trust in the Nigerian market, so they are willing to invest more and add more routes to and from Nigeria. This is good for Travelstart because we are now able to offer our customers more flights at lower prices. This will help to increase the number of tickets we sell and sales overall.

What are the classes of people that travel mostly in Nigeria (e.g. Business, Holidays, Religion) and what destinations do they often visit?
If you look at the overall travel market in Nigeria, it is predominantly made up of corporate travelers i.e. those traveling for business purposes. Travelstart customers, though, are those who travel more for leisure. So we see our customers flying to popular destinations such as Dubai, New York, London etc. We also have a high number of customers who combine leisure trip with business i.e. they are traveling for what we call “bleisure”. For instance you could go to Dubai for shopping with your wife and then stop by to see a business partner as well. In addition to Dubai, we also see bleisure customers going to China and India.

Travelstart partnered KLM Royal Dutch Airline to sponsor the Nigerian Bobsled and Skeleton team to the Winter Olympics. Why did you choose KLM and what are the benefits of the partnership?
We have a good relationship with Air France/KLM as they are one of our top selling airlines. When we received the opportunity to fly the historic team to South Korea, we approached KLM and they saw the immediate value of joining forces with us. It shows how much the airline trusts us. They know that we are reliable and that we are committed to doing things differently so as to provide more value for our customers. These are character traits that we also saw in the historic team. So, we are proud to have been a travel partner for the Nigerian Bobsled and Skeleton team to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

What are your plans towards the World Cup since a lot of Nigerians will be travelling to Russia soon to attend the event?
I cannot disclose those our plans yet as we are still concluding with our partners. All I can say is that we are planning to do something great for our customers.

Travelstart will be celebrating its sixth year anniversary in Nigeria. What plans do you have to commemorate this milestone?
Yes, March marks our sixth year of operations in Nigeria. We are planning a six day surprise for the public from March 20 – 27. Interested customers should visit our website and follow our social media pages to learn more about how we will be commemorating this milestone.

What are your unique selling prepositions?
We offer better prices than our other competitors. It is important to us that we always give value to our customers. Booking a flight on our online platform is very simple and easy to use. Having all the deals already available on the site provides customers with added transparency. Customers can see for themselves exactly what the prices are from the airlines. You don’t need to call us to see if we can get you a better price over the phone or at our walk-in center. We also provide a great customer service experience. So we will never leave you stranded, we will always do whatever we can to help you and if you cancel or miss your flight, we will always be there for you. All this from our online platform at www.travelstart.com.ng