An extraordinary Cabinet meeting held mid-last month, resolved that hotels will be allowed to host gatherings, meetings and conferences. The meeting also allowed domestic and international tourism for visitors traveling on chartered flights. In a bid to facilitate recovery from the covid-19 pandemic, two young entrepreneurs, Nghombombong Minuifuong a Cameroon citizen alongside his colleague, Daria Mutoni, Rwandan, are supporting local tourism operators through an online booking platform. They do this by offering hosts and business a means to get bookings and receive payments on Mobile Money. The duo are International Business and Trade students at African Leadership University. The platform is known as Bongalo, an online accommodation booking company based in Kigali, connecting travelers to affordable and comfortable accommodation across Africa. According to the entrepreneurs, since payout systems for other existing platforms, are expensive, time consuming and often termed as difficult due to the absence of PayPal cash out in Rwanda, local hosts and business often encounter challenges to access international payments for bookings. “We have implemented a temporary support measure of commission-free bookings for a given period of time, to allow hosts to collect booking amount without deducting commission,” said Mutoni. Inspiration behind The platform was formally launched last year as the two students sought to roll out a solution that would be relevant across the continent. “We wanted to build a solution by Africans for Africa. Foreign brands fill our markets, and we tend to have almost nothing to show for our work and capability,” said Minuifuong. Also, after looking at how much hosts and businesses pay on other platforms due to the lack of a contextual payout solution for the African market, he said they decided to bridge the gap for payments by building this technology to include mobile money payment as well. The team began by connecting with travelers visiting Rwanda and offering their facilities to host them. “They would pay on arrival and other paid before arrival with Mobile money,” added Mutoni. At that time, the duo was able to host travelers from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Uganda. More about the app The platform has a flexible and convenient payment method using mobile money. They implement an API that collects payment from mobile payment wallets across the continent, in addition to generic payment methods such as VISA/Master cards and PayPal. The aim, the entrepreneurs said, is to give access to affordable accommodation to visitors and tourists travelling on the continent and allow them to pay with mobile money accounts, which are used almost exclusively in Africa. How it works Travelers sign up on the web platform with their names, email, and password. They can either book listings or list their properties. To ensure the security and safety of users, Mutoni said verification is done through a process of submission of ID documents for both hosts and guests. “Users can make payments with Mobile money account or debit card,” she added. Currently, the platform supports mobile money payments from five countries now including; Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. “We payout hosts directly to their mobile money wallet or local bank accounts in Rwanda. The payment method specifically targets the users,” said Minuifuong. Moving forward The platform has worked with over 50 guests who visited Rwanda since October 2019 as well as serving 23 apartments in Kigali with guests. Meanwhile, Bongalo has recently launched a new platform where more features have been added and it’s onboarding more users, added to the already existing 500 registered users. According to the two, unemployment is one of the biggest challenges across the world at large. One of their goals is to create more jobs directly and indirectly via the initiative. Currently, the company has already offered employment opportunity to five people locally, and are set to take on more team members to join the technical and marketing team.
