Travelground founders launch booking service to target business travellers

Over 500,000 South Africans travelled domestically for business last year. It’s why the founders of the TravelGround Group, Marcel Van de Ghinste and Jonathan Womersley, have launched WorkTripper.co.za, South Africa’s first business-ready accommodation-booking platform.

Built entirely for business travellers WorkTripper allows users to find the features and services that they need, such as flexible cancellations, negotiated rates and Wi-Fi, from over 12,000 establishments across the country.

The new platform is the group’s third ecommerce venture in nine years and follows in the successful footsteps of TravelGround.com and LekkeSlaap.co.za. Together they attract an average of 750,000 unique users a month, with thousands of bookings made each week.

Van de Ghinste and Womersley have seen the consumer market change over the years and have adapted their web development strategy accordingly.

“The local ecommerce market has changed significantly since 2009. Back then traffic from mobile devices was almost insignificant, while today it accounts for half of our traffic,” says Van de Ghinste.

“It’s important that our websites look and feel great on any platform, whether it’s a desktop computer, or mobile smartphone. This is essential to any ecommerce business as customers want an experience that gives them what they want, quickly and easily.”

‘While travel agents are great at serving corporates, SMEs have no one to turn to’

They believe that tapping into a customer’s needs and behaviour is also key.

“We noticed that certain business travellers were using our leisure booking platforms to find accommodation, even though the experience wasn’t tailored for them.

“We discovered through market research we discovered that, while corporate travel agents are great at serving large corporates, SMEs have no one to turn to,” explains Van de Ghinste.

“We realised that we were uniquely positioned to negotiate business discounts on behalf of South Africa’s smaller business travellers. We’ve coupled those discounts with a platform that is built to help them easily find business-ready accommodation.”

World Cup takeoff

Customer insight was also the driving force behind the launch of LekkeSlaap.co.za, South Africa’s leading Afrikaans accommodation-booking platform, as well as TravelGround.com, the group’s first ecommerce business.

“We launched TravelGround to capitalise on the 2010 World Cup and the site went live in the third quarter of 2009,” reminisces Womersley.

“At the time we were four recent graduates working above my parent’s garage, building a platform to service a demand from international and local travellers looking for places to stay.”

“As it turned out, they didn’t need the World Cup to get their venture off the ground,  and instead they found a niche in servicing domestic travellers seeking weekend getaways.

“Originally we thought we needed four bookings a day to make the business sustainable. It took us a full six months to reach that first goal, and we soon realised we should have been aiming much higher.”

Started with R12,000

“When they launched they had just R12,000 in the bank, so in the beginning they needed to do almost every job themselves. We were becoming swamped as we grew, so we started hiring a team of inhouse agents.” says Van de Ghinste.

By 2012 the company had 20 staff, and today it has a team of over 100.

Despite their sustained performance as a diversified ecommerce provider, they remain committed to creating a culture of high touch — for their team, their customers and their 16,000 establishment partners.

“We believe that our customers should be able to pick up the phone and talk to a friendly assistant, whether it’s first thing in the morning, or 11 o’clock at night. So all our brands have a team of consultants on call ready and willing to help a customer when they need it.”

‘Service is key’

As a young team who have grown up in the digital age — Womersley and Van de Ghinste are both 34 years old — their customer-first approach is refreshing and is a value that they embody across their brands.

“When we started out, we thought we were building a technology platform, but we now understand that service is our most important differentiator.

“WorkTripper, for instance, might be underpinned by technology – but it is fundamentally a service. We are here to help business travellers find the perfect accommodation for their business stays, and we do that by connecting them with our national network of rated establishments as well as offering excellent customer service.”