TRAVELING IS ARTISTRY, OWNING A TRAVEL AGENCY REQUIRES ONE TO BE ARTISTIC
Travel agencies have a significant role to play in this era of digital age, customers want easy access to
information that is relevant to their needs (Van Rensburg, 2014). This means that these agencies not only act as a link between travelers (customers) and destinations (tourism services), but ensure that customers are well treated and enjoy memorable trips. The entire value chain has to be customer centric, this is most important, this is why Maepa Maepa co-founded Maepa Tours. In this Exclusive Interview with The Village Mag, the Lefiso born entrepreneur talks to us about everything Maepa Tours.
Born and bred in the small village of Lefiso located on the borderline of Mpumalanga and Limpopo province, Maepa Maepa. Upon finishing school at Malatse High School, he relocated to Pretoria with the hopes of bettering his life. He always loved travelling and with the power that came with the evolution of technology and the introduction of social media, Maepa Tours was born long before it was even registered. Prior to the introduction of WhatsApp, during the days of now defunct Mxit which was a South African free instant messaging application developed by Mxit Ltd. At its peak, the app had over7.4 million active subscribers, of which 6.3 million were South African (Wikipedia).
Maepa took advantage of this application as he would regularly post pictures of himself traveling the lengths and breadth of his native country South Africa. Many people on his contacts list loved his pictures and started to enquire and ask for advices about everything traveling. “Personally I always loved traveling, I frequented Cape Town, Durban etc. I used to post a lot of my escapades on social media and had a lot of people enquiring this is when I realized that there are people in love with what I love” said Maepa. This is when he realized that there is a huge gap in the market for a local travel agency that many can connect with and understand, the company Maepa Tours was officially registered in 2018.
The support has been amazing and judging by the fact that this spring up until the 20th of December 2021, the company is fully booked every weekend except the 17th September 2021 weekend. According to Maepa Tours this is very important as September is declared a tourism month which coincide with the heritage month. He said “People need to travel the country and learn about other cultures or just to unwind, recharge and re-energize” when asked about the importance of traveling.
Image: Supplied
Asked which province or destination has he seen the highest number of bookings, without hesitation he replied Mpumalanga. This is because the province boasts a lot of traveling amenities and offers a lot incentives such free activities for patrons that visit their sites. Maepa Tours works closely with this companies and does not charge for activities in these areas but only charge for traveling and accommodation. Maepa feels that the more people vaccinate, the more stability this will bring to the tourism sector and the country at large, he encouraged for everyone to vaccinate against the coronavirus.
We certainly wish to see this locally owned company growing and competing internationally against the other so called big travel agencies in the future. Follow Maepa Tours on Facebook for more information.
Click here to listen to the interview with Maepa Maepa of Maepa Tours.
