Today, we present to you Tubayo travel. An online travel market place that has revolutionized the travel business in Uganda where users can list, discover and book unique travel experiences around the world. We got in touch with Tubayo travel to discuss how the company has grown and thrived since it first started
A chat with Tubayo travel staff.
A brief summary of what the organization does.
Tubayo is a travel marketplace that allows its users to list, book and discover amazing experiences and beautiful accommodation spaces.
What motivated you to start this business?
When founder and CEO, Namanya Brian travelled to Kenya for a trip, he discovered issues in the travel industry and decided to come up with a platform that could solve these issues like how hectic it is to search online for available travel experiences and the limited selection of listings for people to choose from which turn out to be very expensive.
How did you finance the start-up?
The biggest source of finance has been attributed to bootstrapping which was earned from different gigs and works. In addition, an accelerator program with MasterCard in 2020.
What has been the most credible method of advertising and why?
The best method of advertising has been through our big next work and our social media platform. This has been the most reliable because it has been organic and is up to date with current trend so what better way to advertise a travel market place if not through social media.
If you were given adequate funding at the moment, what would you use it for?
It would be used for development of the team. Developing the team would focus on things like funding further studies for team members in the different fields they want to major in, increasing compensation to boost their confidence and increasing productivity through providing new skills. The funding would also contribute to further research, improvement of our product and increasing our reach in teams of awareness.
This kind of funding would contribute to building the space exploration project Mars. At Tubayo travel, the goal is to have a Tubayo home on Mars in 2030 and this will require investing in space exploration.
What was your breakthrough moment?
Our very first booking in 2019 for one of our experiences, building a team at Tubayo and the launch of the mobile application.
Any challenges you have faced as a company.
Lockdown and funding. Lockdown meant there was no work to do because of the pandemic and the restrictions that it posed. Shortage on funding is also a general short coming to all start ups since a small amount of funds are directed to Ugandan start-ups which hinders activities and company operations.
How have you used tech to boost the company?
Tubayo travel is a tech company so it is inevitable. We have used it to build our product to world class standard through its user interface. We have also used it to help track our niche that helps us deliver our service better. Technology is quite helpful when it comes to studying trends in the industry we are in and this has enabled us to keep up with ever changing trends. Also social media reach out to the target market has been one of its biggest contributions.
What are your thoughts on the travel business in Uganda?
The travel business is full of great potential that has not been tapped into yet. it also requires those in the business to jump onto the latest trends and divert from the traditional way of doing things.
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