SleepOut embarks on ‘Zanzibar to Lagos African Tour’ to connect with community

Offering a digital marketplace can be a challenging endeavour — particularly when it comes to connecting with the very users who populate your platform.

With this in mind, African accomodation marketplace SleepOut, which allows users to find, book and offer accommodation, will be touching base with its community of hosts and travellers across Africa on its ‘Zanzibar to Lagos African Tour’ for a 12-week period starting in June.

The SleepOut team, comprising CEO Johann Jenson, CTO Paul Schwarz and Ayako Bertolli (Head of Photography), will visit 10 destinations in sub-Saharan Africa accompanied by travel photographers and “local accommodation experts” to not only connect with the community, but also verify the best accommodation spots in Africa. Getting amazing travel photography along the way probably doesn’t hurt either.

“In September 2013, SleepOut.com was available in only five countries. Today, 10 months down the line, we now work with hosts in 56 countries. We feel that it is very important that we spend time working closely with the SleepOut community to better understand how we can improve the user experience to make accommodation booking on the continent even easier,” remarked Jenson.

Major stops on the tour include Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Harare, Johannesburg, Durban and Lagos. Jenson adds that the tour is all about spending more time with hosts and travellers alike.

SleepOut was launched in BETA back in June 2012, and raised around US$200 000 in seed funding to aid expansion across Africa and the Middle East.

If you are a host that would like to have a photography visit during the tour please contact SleepOut.