Travelstart is an African online travel

booking Booking may refer to: * Making an appointment for a meeting or gathering, as part of event planning/ scheduling * The intake or admission process into a prison or psychiatric facility. * ''Booking'' (manhwa), a Korean comics anthology magazine ...

website, offering flights, hotel bookings, car rental, vacation packages and other travel services through an online booking engine It operates in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. The website uses global distribution systems such as

Amadeus IT Group Amadeus IT Group, S.A. () is a major Spanish multinational technology company that provides software for the global travel and tourism industry. It is the world's leading provider of travel technology that focus on developing software for airline ...

and Travelfusion for flights, and CarTrawler for online car hire bookings. Most revenue is generated from

Pay per click Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. This differs from more t ...

(PPC) advertising, as well as an extensive

affiliate network An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers ( affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs. It allows website publishers to more easily find and participate in affiliate programs which are suitable for their website (and thus g ...

. All Travelstart websites use

Thawte Thawte Consulting (pronounced "thought") is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa. As of December 30, 2016, its then-parent company, Symantec Group, was collectivel ...

to secure

online payment An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increa ...

s. The website was founded in Sweden in 1999 by Stephan Ekbergh. Before launching Travelstart, Ekbergh founded Sweden's first online travel agency, Mr Jet (1995). In 2010, Travelstart Nordic was sold to European Travel Interactive AB(eTRAVELi) and the company headquarters was moved to

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

. Travelstart operates in South Africa since 2006, and emerging markets throughout Africa. In 2012, Travelstart Nigeria was launched. and later Travelstart Egypt, which was located in

Maadi Maadi ( ) is a leafy and once suburban district in the Southern Area of Cairo, Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile about upriver from downtown Cairo. The modern extensions north east and east of Maadi, New Maadi and Zahraa al-Maadi are admini ...

district of

Greater Cairo The Greater Cairo () is a metropolitan area centered around Cairo, Egypt. It comprises the entirety of the Cairo Governorate, the cities of Imbaba and Giza in the Giza Governorate, and the city Shubra El Kheima in Qalyubia Governorate. Its def ...

. In December 2019, Travelstart acquired competitor

Jumia Travel Jumia Travel emerged in 2013 as an online travel agency providing online hotel reservations across the African continent within the Africa Internet Group, now known as Jumia Group. In 2019, Jumia Travel was acquired by Travelstart. Travelstart to ...

from

Jumia Jumia is a marketplace, logistics service and payment service, operating throughout Africa. The logistics service enables the delivery of packages through local partners while the payment services facilitate the payments of online transactions ...

. Under the purchase agreement, Travelstart took control of Jumia Travel's online book websites.

References

External links

*
Travelstart Kenya website

Travelstart Egypt website

Travelstart Nigeria website
{{Cape Town, economy Travel ticket search engines Swedish travel websites Online travel agencies Hospitality companies established in 1999 Internet properties established in 1999 South African travel websites Tourism in the Western Cape Companies based in Cape Town 1999 establishments in Sweden 2010 establishments in South Africa