When Safari Websites Fail To Deliver
February 3, 2010 by Johan Knols
Filed under Tour Operator Reviews
How to bridge the gap for Africans?
Yesterday morning a young man from Botswana contacted me through the Skype button on my homepage. Nelson, which I met a couple of times some years back, had found my safari blog, and was in desperate need of some help.
His request was if I could help him increase the traffic to his website as it was hardly getting any response or inquiries. The chap’s disappointment was, even at 9.000km away, apparent.
‘Ok, please give me the URL of your site’ I told him and I looked it up. (Click here)
(The mention of this website as well as the content of this article has the full approval of Geojoy safaris!)
The status quo
Let me make clear from the start that it is NOT my intention at all to ridicule this man’s company nor his website. But after I surfed through his site it became obvious why nobody would ever get in touch him. The site is just not up to par with what other (foreign) companies are delivering online. From the start the ‘Nelsons of this world’ will be doomed to lose the battle. I will spare you the technical details why his site is not working, but I do want to put a few things in a row:
- Many African governments want, rightly so, the get the locals involved in tourism.
- Tourism Enterprise Licenses are issued like hot-cakes to anybody wanting to start.
- The requirements for locals to own a company are often easier as for foreigners.
- Apart from some required tourism industry licenses, a lot of local (safari) company owners are not even in the possession of regular school certificates.
- A lack of exposure to the standards of the western world makes it difficult for locals to understand exactly what the market is demanding and how to achieve that.
- A lack of start-up capital often forces them to cut corners in all fields of their operation (see above mentioned website).
- Additional skills like Marketing, PR, and IT knowledge, all important to run any company, are most of the time not present.
Misconceptions
Now what does Nelson’s website say about himself. Actually nothing more than that he should have organized a different webmaster. But the online visitor does not see it that way. His first impression will be that he is dealing with some hanky-panky company with this result: ‘click’, and on they go to the next website. Nelson’s vehicles and tents will remain in the storerooms for the next century to come, even though he is a professional guide and the proud owner of a safari company. Question is for how much longer.
Solutions
Now the tricky part comes. How can Nelson start making money?
Finding a foreigner investor is not very likely with that website. Try to start doing more work as a freelancer and learn lacking knowledge from another (foreign) company could be an option, but understandably so, he would rather make money with his own company. So what other things could Nelson do to get off to a new start?
I am a firm believer in not giving anything just for free. BUT there are always exceptions to the rule. I challenge any web-designer to have a look at Nelson’s site and come up with solutions for him how to change it. Better even if you could make a brand new site with and for him. See it as a learning experience for Nelson and a small gift to the African safari industry for yourself.
Who dares to pick up the challenge and win a FREE safari with Nelson? His email address is: lemonelson@live.com.
I am very curious what the result of this story will be.
http://www.thebookingcompany.net/
Hi Johan,
Here’s an example of a good website from a local Batswana travel agent in Maun.
Hello Hari,
I know this company, but it was originally not established by black Motswana. Note that I am not trying to make this a racial issue, far from. But I was merely trying to indicate in the article that less educated Africans will have trouble getting a foot on the ground in the tourism industry.
Hi there
Very good points and important ones too. I’ve passed on your challenge to designers I know…..Interesting to see how this develops!
Hi Charlie,
I appreciate your effort of passing the message on. Thanks a lot!
hmmm,
this site is so bad that it seems that somebody is trying to get a site for free…
Maybe I don’t have enough info, but on the first impression
It smells like a scam to me.
Please prove me wrong.
Hi Kenny,
I can not ‘prove’ that you are wrong. The idea to donate a free safari to the website builder came from myself and not the owner of the site. See it as trading of goods: one free website for one free safari. Nothing wrong with that is it?
Hi Kenny,
I do not know if you have worked with the smaller African companies before, but there are tons of websites like this one out there.
Bear in mind that a lot of companies do not have their own webdesigner, are running internet on a telephone line, do not have any clue what Internet marketing is, etc etc.
I read an article the other day and the outcome was shocking to me. It was about a survey that was conducted in South Africa in the travel industry. The topic on the impact of websites on their companies revenue. The result was that a big majority was still under the impression that putting A website live will open the gates and the money will just come in like water.
Keeping all this in mind .. I do not think that Nelsons site is a scam (but knowing it for 100%? NO, I don’t).
Richard
Hi Richard,
If that is the opinion in South-Africa, than we can only guess what the perception is in the rest of ’safari-Africa’.
Unfortunately you are completely right Johan! I do not have to tell you that the avarage quality of websites in South Africa is indeed higher than in a lot of the other countries in Southern Africa.
I’d also prefer that the quality of the African websites would be on the same level as the European/American ones. That way they would have a better chance to get tourists book with them directly.
Richard
Hi Guys,
you have very valid points and I am glad that you are pointing these out.
I am sorry to have come across as a bit snotty before but this topic is close to my heart.
We run a branding agency in Namibia and are also quite fortunate in comparison to the rest of Africa with having a reasonably high standard of design but there are still as you say tons of websites like this one out there.
And we often deal with those kind of people that are “still under the impression that putting A website live will open the gates and the money will just come in like water.”
I think that this might be a global problem and the education process of the In’s and out’s of the Internet is far lacking behind of what should be allowed to be out there.
I believe that it is far too easy for anybody to publish things on the net.
Uploads should be controlled like you need a drivers license to drive a car on public roads.
I am just tired of all the crap sites and scam e-mails and rubbish that waste not only my time, but also tourists from all over the world that have to scratch trough these tons of bad sites in order to find what they are looking for.
think about this for a second:
The internet is supposed to save us time.
Before the internet we used to write letters.
It took 2 hours to write it, 2 weeks to send and 20 minutes to read.
Today we write an e-mail in 5 minutes, copy it to 20 000 people,
that each waste another 10 minutes to read it.
5 minutes of effort wasted many hours…
I might be getting off the track here, but I hope you get my point.
Ok before I become a “upload criminal” wasting your time, let me get to the point:
I love Safaris and I believe that I can design a better site than the current Geojoy Safaris website.
my bottom line is this:
If I can help make the Internet a better place I am all in!
Kenny
Hi Johan,
I have forwarded the blog to two webdesigners that may want to invest time in this and go on safari with Nelson…
Good luck, Nelson!
Appreciated Bart!
Hi Johan and others,
I have asked our web designer to take a look at Geosafari site and see how we can assist…I have a question for the forum …What percentage of safari bookings/reservations by guests come from direct internet access to Safari operaters web pages as opposed to booking through tour operaters and or brochures etc?…
p.s. please feel free to comment on our web site : http://www.isinkwe.co.za … we born and bred white africans
Hi Greg,
That is of course the $1 million dollar question. I have no idea…..
Hi Greg,
The percentage of Direct Bookers versus coming via a Travel Agent / Tour Operator is very difficult to tell. It depends a lot on how established the company is. For example Shamwari is a well known brand worldwide, therefor a lot of tourists will know Shamwari and can book directly. But even with Shamwari I doubt whether the Direct Bookers percentage is more than 50%.
If I would start a safari lodge my 3 highest priorities in this order would be (1) create an outstanding website (2) get in contact with local AND foreign Tour Operators (e.g. via the Indaba in Durban) and (3) promoting your business via internet.
To come back on the % Direct Bookers, I know there are safari lodges in South Africa that do almost 100% via Tour Operators and Travel Agents.
If you want to contact me directly you are more than welcome to contact me via richard AT hotelfactsheets DOT com.
cheers
Richard
I have had the good fortune of befriending the owner of Geojoy safaris a few months ago as well as Nelson. They helped me in a very kind way with office space. What they asked in return was for me to help them with marketing. Long story short, we are looking at various options but the website came up in a meeting and since I don’t have the expertise, suggested they contact good friend Johan Knols. It’s not a scam, and I am investing a lot of time in it too. My sister in South Africa with her printing business has also agreed to help with designing and printing new brochures etc. I am determined to help the company because they are genuine in their intentions!
Thanks Alwyn for the confirmation.
Hello everybody, hello Johan,
But I was merely trying to indicate in the article that less educated Africans will have trouble getting a foot on the ground in the tourism industry.
I really have a problem to understand, what that theme has to do with the ugly layout of the website. It don’t matters if you’r black or white, wich such a website you won’t have success. With the other mendtioned example (the Booking company), its the same, no navigation, no link on the emailadress….
I had also the bad feeling of a fake, its a different email adress, you posted.
That was the reason for me, not to write Nelson.
And who will decide, whats good for that guy? Himself? You? The readers?
Wouldn’t had it been better, that you collect all ideas, post the best ones or decide yourself and than forward the choosen designer to Nelson?
Greetings,
BeeTee
Greetings,
BeeTee
Hi BeeTee,
Thanks for your comment.
First of all I agree with you that it is Nelson decision what is good for him. However, knowing what is good for you can be influenced by a lack of knowledge in a certain field (in this case the knowledge about websites and everything that has to do with it like SEO and e-marketing). Nelson’s site was designed by a friend of his and rest assured, these guys won’t go through the whole process to put something online in the hope that they will get support from ‘the outside world’. See also Alwyn’s comment who knows Nelson and his company well.
Another thing that I wanted to point out is that, although Nelson can be an extremely competent guide, the website’s look and feel will never bring him business.
Hi Johan,
I was just looking on the webiste and theres nothing,
website expired, that means your experiment did fail?
Or did Nelson a new website?
Would be great to become an update,
BeeTee
(If he still needs a webdesigner,
I’m now on th e way to Botswana and free for two weeks! )
Hello BT,
I haven’t heard from him again. But if you are going to Botswana anyway, you might as well contact him. Good luck.
Its a little bit difficult to contact him,
his webiste is out of order!
Greetings,
BeeTee
BT I only have his email address: lemonelson@live.com
Hope you succeed in contacting him.
Hi Kenny,
Have you contacted Nelson (the owner of the website in the article)? I am sure he would appreciate it, whether you would like to go on safari or not.
Let me know if something comes out of this.
Enjoy your w/e.