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 and claims to list over 7,138 hotels from 320 cities in Nigeria.[2]

Hotels.ng
FounderMark Essien
TypeOnline travel/hotels booking agency
HeadquartersLagos, Nigeria
WebsiteHotels.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,[3] 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.[4]

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]

Startup Fund

On May 26, 2015, Hotels.ng received a $1.2 million startup funding[9][10][11] from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's Omidyar Network and from EchoVC Pan-African fund.[12]

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.[13]

Staff

Hotels.ng employs 49 locally-working staff in it's Yaba office and outsources and crowdsources its data collection to freelance workers.[14]

Expansion

In January 2018, Hotels.ng launched Hotel.africa and Fly.africa as part of its expansion plans across Africa.[15]

  1. Hotel.africa Homepage
  2. Hotels.ng Homepage
  3. Hotels.ng raises $1.2Million in Funding
  4. Hotels.ng Founder, Mark Essien is proof that Nigerian Technical Founders can make great CEOs
  5. Hotels.ng and 35 other Nigerian Startups make it to SpeedUP Africa’s bootcamp in Ghana
  6. Checkout Hotels.ng’s awesome new office space in Yaba [PHOTOS]

See also

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. Nsehe, Mfonobong. "Nigeria's Hotels.ng Raises $1.2 Million". Forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  3. Naija, Bella. "BN Making It!: Meet Innovative Geeky Entrepreneur, Mark Essien – The Brain Behind Hotels.ng". BellaNaija.com. Bella Naija. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  4. Voice, TheNigerian (August 21, 2015). "'African Start-Up' On CNN: How An Entrepreneur Built Nigeria's Leading Hotel Bookings". The Nigerian Voice. TheNigerianVoice. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  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.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  10. O'Neil, Sean (May 26, 2015). "Nigerian travel booking site Hotels.ng raises $1.2M, plans expansion". Phocuswire.
  11. "Hotels.ng gets $1.2m Investment". vanguardngr.com. Vanguard Media Limited, Nigeria. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  12. "EchoVC Made Their First Public Bet In Nigeria – Coinvested In Hotels.ng". Tekedia.com. Tekedia. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  13. Oluwafemi, Bankole. "Hurrah For Traction - The Mark Essien Edition". TechCabal.com. TechCabal. Retrieved 17 June 2015.
  15. "Nigeria's Hotel.ng expands African reach with new platforms". Retrieved 14 March 2018.
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