Credit: Jovago
Summer is the perfect time for planning a nice vacation. Planning vacations is usually fun; you’re looking forward to a break from work, eager to explore the tourist attractions and trying out new food, imagining yourself retiring to bed after a nice long fun day. However, the not-so-fun aspect of vacation planning is the thorough research for the right hotel for you. May be you’re looking for a room with a view, perhaps a place that serves the best breakfast in town or simply a room that isn’t too heavy on the wallet.
Finding the right hotel for yourself in Pakistan isn’t as easy as it seems. Despite there being 1,250 travel agencies in Pakistan, the focus of these agencies lies on international travelling, not the local market. If you are looking for a hotel within Pakistan, you need help. This is where Jovago comes in.
What is Jovago?
Jovago, an online travel agency (OTA), is the latest member in the Rocket Internet Pakistan family. Launched in 2013, Jovago started its journey from Nigeria. From there, Jovago has expanded to Kenya, Senegal, Zanzibar, Djibouti and now Pakistan. It has over 200,000 bookable hotels in its global network and 120 across Pakistan in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
Jovago aims to provide a streamlined convenient system for online hotel booking, all over the world. According to their website, “We strive to provide our customers with a fast, reliable and easy to use way to book the perfect accommodation for you from the comfort of your own home”. At the same time, it promotes previously unknown hotels and brings new business to them.
As mentioned, Jovago is a venture of Rocket Internet. Rocket Internet is a German VC (venture capital) firm with multiple investments in the international market. In Pakistan, hot startups like Food Panda, Easy Taxi, Daraz.pk, Kaymu.pk, Lamudi.pk and Carmudi.pk.
How it works
Jovago has a pretty simple process that focuses on customer convenience.
- Choose the duration of the trip, the destination and the number of people.
- Explore the hotels listed with Jovago through various filtering options.
- Make a reservation on the website. Payment options are flexible; one can pay via credit card online or at the hotel on arrival.
- Review how the stay at the hotel was, afterwards.
Local hotels that are directly listed with Jovago, i.e. in one of the six countries Jovago is present, are personally vetted by Jovago’s staff to make sure that the quality of service provided by the hotel is up to the company’s standards.
Affiliate program
Like many smart businesses, Jovago offers an affiliate program to get the word out about itself. The website offers options for individuals and travel agencies to sign up as an affiliate and refer clients to Jovago. After signing up, the affiliate is assigned an affiliate Voucher Code that he/she can use to refer clients. The more people sign up with your Voucher Code, the more money you get for refering. At present, Jovago offers N 1000 (Nigerian Naira) which is about Rs. 606 for individual affiliates and 5% commission for travel agencies.
Competition
Given the grand scale of the travel industry worldwide, the competition for Jovago is intense. Not only do the local players like checkin.pk, chutti.pk and goghoom.com (a Plan9 startup) want a piece of the travel industry pie, but much more popular players like Booking.com, Hotels.com and TripAdvisor are after the same target audience. Given the competition, Rocket Internet’s backing is quite an advantage for Jovago. Additionally, the focus on establishing a strong rapport in less popular travel destinations in the emerging markets is a smart move.
What should we expect?
At present, Jovago only provides hotel booking services. The competition on the other hand, provides myriad of services that include airline ticket reservation, travel insurance, visa services and tour packages at one spot. Being able provide a great hotel stay at a reasonable rate is wonderful but by adding more services to their present offerings, Jovago can provide a one-stop solution for travelling, which is even better!
We can already see that Jovago is moving in that direction with recent partnerships with the global OTA (online travel agency) TripAdvisor and the Nigerian airlines, Fly Naija.
Within a few months of its launch, Jovago has listed quite a number of local hotels. The way things are going, we predict, that Jovago may become a trusted tool for planning trips in Pakistan.
Connect with Jovago
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