Kayondo uses social media to make tourism exciting for the youth

The proliferation of social networks has, in a way, exaggerated major changes globally. These changes have changed many aspects of life, including the way people consume goods and services.

Changes in how people consume products has significantly affected businesses but mainly through enabling new marketing strategies.

Tourism, being one of the most vibrant sectors of the global economy, is undoubtedly a part of all these.

Tourism consumers engage with social networking sites to research trips, make informed decisions about their travels and share their personal experiences of a particular hotel, restaurant or even a travel company, while tour operators seek to successfully leverage social media to their benefit.

Ibrahim Kayondo, is one the tour operators that using social media to entice Ugandans into taking short trips to destinations around the country and beyond.

He said that his target market are mostly the youth.

"I am a travel fanatic and the founder of Trip Addicts - which is a youth oriented travel group that aims at luring the youths into domestic tourism. We started officially in 2020 but I have been organising trips before that," Kayondo told Nile Post.

Kayondo said that he gets travellers using different social media platforms and entices them to travel with his group by making the trips affordable and exciting to the young people.

"We offer travel, game drives, trips, hotel bookings and tourism consultancy. We also do group tours, and we use social media to get clients," Kayondo said.

On retaining clients

With various options of travel consumers to pick from, Kayondo said that retains his clients by making sure that his trips are affordable and that clients get all that they pay for when they travel with him.

"We create entertainment in tourism as a new trend. We give our clients all that we advertise, this shows them that we are credible," Kayondo said.

Challenges

Kayondo said that one of the challenges they have faced has been with the recent blockades on social media by the government, these put them completely out of business for weeks.

He adds taxes and roads leading to a number of tour destinations in the country to his major challenges.

"The government should ease taxation on young travel groups and companies. The registration process of tour companies should be moved to the tourism ministry," Kayondo said.