NaijaTalkTalk- Nigeria’s online hotel wars

Jovago’s

Jovago founder and former MD Marek Zmyslowski, current Nigeria MD, Kushal Dutta, and current global CEO, Paul Midy

I was at Jovago’s annual stakeholder meeting yesterday, where almost nothing of interest was said, if you aren’t a hospitality wonk. I’m still not quite sure why I went.

I did hear one interesting thing though. According to global CEO, Paul Midy, Jovago is apparently investing in developing hotel channel and property management software solutions for the hotels on its network. Very sensible long term strategy.

That sounds a lot like where HotelOga, the hotel SaaS company that Marek Zmsylowski, Jovago’s former Nigeria MD launched last month is headed.

No wonder Jovago is pissed.
Marek for his part went on to publish a series of tweets which essentially say that Jovago wasn’t planning on exploring hotel software while he was there, and they were actually validating his plans. He’s also not afraid of going head to head with Rocket, because software is not one the German clone factory’s core competences.

Rocket was never able to build any decent advanced software based product/venture

In any case, Marek isn’t the Frenchman’s only problem. Femi Akinde’s Slimtrader is in this exact same business as well. Grab your popcorn.

And what about Hotels.ng’s Mark Essien? He seems to be staying blissfully above the fray. For now.
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