Gallivant Africa has launched a new online tour aggregating platform, GallivantAfrica.com, for the African tourism industry which allows travellers and agents to search, compare and book African touring experiences.

“Bookings and inquiries are sent directly to the partnering tour operators for confirmation and response via an easy to use customer 'Enquiry to Booking' (E2B) conversation platform,” said Varon Sharma, CTO of GallivantAfrica.com.

Selected tour operators specialising in African destinations are able to list their tours on the technology-based marketing platform for the multi-day tour industry.

“GallivantAfrica acts as a commercial agent for tour operators. and does not own, sell, resell, furnish, provide, manage or control any transportation, tour or travel services and does not act as an agent to travellers,” noted Akinola Akinlorin, MD of GallivantAfrica.com.

The platform currently has a partnership with Viator, a travel platform owned by TripAdvisor. Therefore, most of the tours, and specifically African tours, listed on the website for now are listings from the aggregator.

“Going forward, we intend to own inventory and populate our platform with tailor-made tours from tour operators across the continent and list them on our website,” said Akinlorin.

He noted that two tour operators from West Africa had partnered with the platform while four tour operators from Southern Africa have expressed interest.

There is no cost for a tour operator to list on the site, however there is a set of terms and conditions each tour operator should agree to, as well as a standard service fee payable for all confirmed bookings.

Gallivant Africa is headquartered in Johannesburg and has a branch in Lagos, Nigeria.