Zimbabwe Tourism Innovation Challenge

CONGRATULATIONS MAKOROKOTO AMHLOPE to Jeffrey Takunda Murungweni, the winner of the Inaugural Tourism Innovation Challenge which his project Trafiki Africa!!!

Jeffrey is a 19-year-old gentleman passionate about entrepreneurship. He is currently an Upper Six student at WatershedCollege, in Marondera, where he also serves as the School’s Brand Ambassador for the year 2021. He is an alumnus of STAR Leadership Academy (2019), where young people learn more about leadership and other skills necessary to help in addressing Africa’s economic and social challenges. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the tourism sector inspired the young man to come up with a digital platform that seeks to offer quality yet affordable accommodation using technologies in the shared economy space. The platform will allow users to book and pay for their accommodation and other tourism services through a WhatsApp chat bot. Trafiki Africa will provide convenience for users as WhatsApp is a relatively affordable and widely used communication platform. Accommodation seekers will be linked with home owners, lodges, hotels and other forms of accommodation. People who were previously excluded from the tourism market due to high costs of accommodation will now have access to information on budget accommodation.

The platform will also offer travel suggestions exposing potential tourists to a wider product base. This feature is intended to promote lesser-known places around Zimbabwe. The vision being to be the number one accommodation services solution in Zimbabwe.