Lagos, Nigeria, 19th February 2015. Jovago.com, Africa’s Number One Hotel Booking Platform recently conducted a survey on how hotels were booked in Nigeria.
Africa constitutes 15 % of the world population, it is indicated that around 10 % of this percentage are indeed internet users. There are approximately 297 million internet users in Africa and the bulk of which are of course Nigerians. This rate of internet usage reflects the adaptability of Africans given the fact that the use of PC, mobile phones started in the mid ’90s. This survey shows the development of e-commerce particularly e-tourism shows the changing habits of Nigerians as new services such as online bookings are facilitated by services like Jovago.com.
Most Used/Preferred Device
Apparently the usage of the good-old PC registers as the most popular device used when online bookings are carried. In spite of the influx of smart-phones – Android and Apple devices, the personal computer ranks highest with smart-phone following closely behind and the third most popular device used is the digital tablet.
In this section, the medal goes to the very trusty PC – be it a Mac, Dell, Samsung, HP – we clearly use our computers more than any other devices! However, this may not be long-lasting because the rate at which smartphones are being circulated is increasing very fast, they are predicted to be utilized more frequently than the PC in the coming years. As Marek Zmyslowski, Managing Director of Jovago.com noted, “Nigerians are a highly mobile people. Everywhere you go, you see people on their phones; using the internet, making calls or simply chatting with friends. The influx of online businesses like Jovago.com means that Nigerians now have the added convenience of making purchases on their phones and this trend is gradually picking up”.
Most Popular Browsers
Here, our survey shows that Google Chrome is a clear favorite for a whopping 47% of the population of Nigerian internet users. It is closely followed by Firefox which is used by 22.5%. Safari ranks third with 15.5% of the Nigerian internet users while the good-old Explorer is holding on tightly ranking 4th with a user percentage of 12%. The least used with user percentage of 3% is the Opera browser.
Desired Platforms for Online Customer Service
In many cases when customers need more information concerning a booking or faced with an obstacle, the need to contact customer service arises and in this situation we find that most Nigerians find the LiveChat pop-up on the websites and Whatsapp most handy to contact a customer service agent in comparison to the other social messaging platforms like Skype, Viber and BBM.
Africa’s Biggest Players
Based on the fact that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, the fact that they have the highest number of internet users is no surprise at all. Nigeria is crowned the winner in this category with approximately 70.3 million internet users in Africa. Closely behind Nigeria is Egypt representing Northern Africa with 46.2 million users. South Africa comes in third with 24.9 million users; Kenya with 21.2 million users and Morocco’s 20.2 million users brings them up making them the fifth most connected in Africa.
This survey is based on all the travellers who have booked through jovago.com in 2014.
About Jovago
Jovago.com is an online hotel booking service headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, founded by Africa Internet Group and has MTN as one of the investors. Jovago.com, Africa’s No.1 booking portal, facilitates the booking process for its users to provide them with the besthotel booking experience with fast, transparent and easy-to-use services. Jovago.com has over 20,000 local hotel listings across Africa and over 200,000 hotels around the world.
