Hotels.ng

Hotels.ng is a Nigerian online hotels booking agency which was launched in 2013. The platform was founded by Mark Essien[1] who hails from Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria[2] and claims to list over 7,000 hotels from 21 regions in Nigeria.[3]

Hotels.ng
Founder Mark Essien
Type Online travel/hotels booking agency
Headquarters Lagos, Nigeria
Website Hotels.ng

History

In 2012, while Mark Essien was studying for his MSc. in Computer Science at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, he developed an interest in the Nigerian technology space. His analysis showed that for an emerging market like Nigeria, a travel/tourism startup would work the quickest. Studying South American and Asian models of already-established hotels booking agencies,[4] Mark tentatively created a hotels listing platform (which was what Hotels.ng was, initially.) He purchased a domain name and a list of hotels and put them up on the website.

This domain recorded enough traffic numbers to convince Mark to return to Nigeria from Germany. In Calabar, he continued to list more hotels. He partnered with a friend and they started taking photographs of hotels and signing agreements with as many hotels in Calabar as they could find.[5]

As soon as they had enough hotels listed, bookings were enabled on Hotels.ng. Mark says that users began making reservations from the first day bookings were enabled.[6]

Seed Fund

Shortly after the launch of Hotels.ng, Mark published a few press articles that caught the attention of Iroko TV's founder, Jason Njoku. At the time, he (Jason) was beginning a startup fund (Spark.ng) and looking for good internet businesses to invest in.[7]

After negotiations, Spark.ng made a first investment of $75,000 in Hotels.ng which prompted Mark to move to Lagos to set up the platform there. A few months after the initial investment, the Spark fund made another investment of $150,000.[8] This fund enabled Hotels.ng to continue to grow its customer base and expand its hotel listings.

Startup Fund

On May 26, 2015, Hotels.ng received a $1.2 million startup funding[9] from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's Omidyar Network and from EchoVC Pan-African fund.[10] This funding is expected to be used to expand hotels.ng across Africa, starting with Ghana.

The funding follows from the announcement of a profitable 2014 in Hotels.ng, where the platform was said to have ostensibly made $40,000 in monthly revenue in the last half of the year.[11]

Staff

Hotels.ng employs 49 locally-working staff in its Yaba office and outsources and crowdsources its data collection to freelance workers.

Expansion Projections

Hotels.ng has announced plans to cover 90% of the Nigerian market and 50% of the African market within three years.

External links

  1. Hotels.ng Homepage
  2. Hotels.ng Company Blog
  3. Mark Essien's Medium Page
  4. Hotels.ng Travel Magazine
  5. Hotels.ng Jobs[12]
  6. Hotels.ng raises $1.2Million in Funding
  7. Hotels.ng Founder, Mark Essien is proof that Nigerian Technical Founders can make great CEOs
  8. Hotels.ng and 35 other Nigerian Startups make it to SpeedUP Africa’s bootcamp in Ghana
  9. Checkout Hotels.ng’s awesome new office space in Yaba [PHOTOS]

References

  1. ↑ Essien, Mark (24 August 2015). "Hotels.ng Founder, Mark Essien is proof that Nigerian Technical Founders can make great CEOs". Techpoint.ng. Techpoint.ng. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  2. ↑ Essien, Mark. "Mark Essien | Founder at Hotels.ng". LinkedIn.com. LinkedIn. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  3. ↑ Nsehe, Mfonobong. "Nigeria's Hotels.ng Raises $1.2 Million". Forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  4. ↑ Naija, Bella. "BN Making It!: Meet Innovative Geeky Entrepreneur, Mark Essien – The Brain Behind Hotels.ng". BellaNaija.com. Bella Naija. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  5. ↑ Live, ThisDay (June 26, 2014). "Mark Essien: I Was the Night Watchman Taking Care of a Paralysed Guy in Germany". ThisDay Newspaper. ThisDay. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  6. ↑ Crunch, Tech. "Nigeria's Hotels.ng Grabs $1.2M To Expand Listings Across Africa". TechCrunch.com. TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  7. ↑ Nigeria, Scoop. "SPARK launch gains global recognition". Scoop.ng. IDENTICAL. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  8. ↑ Jackson, Tom. "Hotels.ng hits 6,000 listings milestone". Disrupt-Africa.com. Disrupt Africa. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  9. ↑ Editor, Omidyar. "Omidyar Network Bets on Nigeria's Growing Travel and Tourism Sector with Investment in Hotels.ng". Omidyar.com. Omidyar Network. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  10. ↑ Editors, Tekedia. "EchoVC Made Their First Public Bet In Nigeria – Coinvested In Hotels.ng". Tekedia.com. Tekedia. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  11. ↑ Oluwafemi, Bankole. "Hurrah For Traction - The Mark Essien Edition". TechCabal.com. TechCabal. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  12. ↑ "Ever wondered what it's like working at a startup? | TechCabal". Retrieved 2015-12-21.
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