Tourvest Destination Management’s new Franchising division was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a strong desire to grow TDM’s African footprint. The TDM Franchise model will offer new, unexplored African destinations.
The Franchising division is headed up by COO, Martijn Mellaart, and consists of two components:
e.DMC – Tourvest Destination Management’s enterprise management platform, which is available to DMCs throughout Southern Africa.
e.DMC, Your Booking Partner – launched in November 2020, it caters for small to medium-size DMCs in Southern Africa, offering a wide range of back-office solutions.
According to Martijn: “The pandemic has knocked our tourism sector, and with many forced retrenchments, many of our travel colleagues have been forced to start their own DMC businesses to provide daily incomes. The e.DMC model has been proved to be very successful for SMMEs with small budgets and limited resources. Offering a peace-of-mind solution for their complete back office, allowing these DMCs to concentrate on sales and their clients.”
Besides reaching out a helping hand to those stranded in the decimated tourism industry, e.DMC provides solutions at no cost, in the form of central procurement, centralised administration and single supplier payment facility.
The Franchise module intern focuses on acquiring new African destinations to add to the African footprint for TDM.
The Franchising division allows Tourvest Destination Management to partner up with market leader DMCs in the respective destinations, expanding the TDM network across Africa. The next destinations on Sense of Africa’s radar are Rwanda and Ethiopia. Tourvest Destination Management provides an advanced booking system and work processes.
“The Franchise destinations will be offered under our renowned brands, Sense of Africa and Sense of Oceans, depending on their geographic location – Southern Africa, East Africa, Islands,” says Martijn.
“We are thrilled to announce that our first Franchise project is Sense of Oceans Madagascar, and the next destinations on our Sense of Oceans radar are Rodrigues Island, Zanzibar and St Helena.
Sense of Oceans currently has Mozambique as part of its portfolio, and with over 20 years of experience is still a market leader in the magnificent beach destination.
