Moni Baruwa: I spend less time focusing on competition and more on differentiating my brand
What do you do when you have the travel bug and just can’t get it out of your system? Well, you start a business of course! Moni Baruwa has visited more than 25 countries, lived on 3 continents and connected with people from all across the globe. Her travels and the path of self-discovery and development led her to start her very first business venture in CountlessMiles. CountlessMiles is a travel startup that aims to transform the African’s perception of travel by curating unique, cultural and fun destination experiences within and outside the African continent. Moni shared with us some of her thoughts on the black travel movement, filling in the gaps in her startup toolkit and her jollof of choice. Why don’t you believe young Africans currently see intra Africa travel as an attractive option? Traveling within Africa requires deeper introspection. Generally, the average young African’s idea of a travel destination has been focused on places where they can shop or conduct business, or show on social media and positively impact their social status. These historically have included locations in the UK, US, and Dubai. If a destination does not fit into this, then it is not seen as appealing. So our goal is not only to make intra Africa (and global) travel more attractive, but also to change the perception of travel as a whole to a means of learning and self-development. I’ll use myself as an example. When I started solo traveling, and not just to shop or take pictures, the experiences forced me out of my comfort zone, and I developed the boldness to take risks and think bravely in ways that even a college degree didn’t offer. I believe if more of our young people have similar cultural experiences exploring other regions, cultures and ways of life, and brought home the knowledge, we would see significant impact from the community levels to the economic level. Additionally, and equally important, Africa travel is quite expensive and costs the same or sometimes more than the more “attractive” travel options like Europe, US and the Middle East, so young travelers often opt for this. It’s similar to the dilemma US travelers face when trying to choose to travel to the West Coast from the East Coast, as compared to spending less on a round-trip flight to Europe. Black Travel has become quite a popular topic in the media recently with companies like Travel Noire and Tastemakers Africa getting a lot of media attention for providing young black travelers with other options for travel and showcasing another side of the travel industry? What is CountlessMiles bringing to the conversation and adding value to the industry? This is a question I get asked a lot. It is quite amazing the work that businesses like Travel Noire and Tastemakers Africa are doing. For instance, Travel Noire has totally transformed the travel industry for black people. I remember when I traveled, I didn’t see a lot of people like me – black and more so African, so this is good progress. We have similar goals and missions in that we are changing the conversation with regards to blacks and travel. However, the approaches are quite different. Our goal at CountlessMiles is two-fold: we aim to not only change the average African’s perception of travel but also consciously add Africans to the “black traveler” community. This group of travelers is typically different from the black traveler community because they have unique barriers to travelling including issues such as obtaining visas with a non blue/maroon passport, finding travel health insurance to name a few. When I traveled around Eastern Europe and I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, the guy at the immigration border gave me a dirty look because of my Nigerian passport. He almost gave me a hard time getting in, but because of my experience with similar issues, I was fortunately able to convince him otherwise. Similarly, in Vancouver, the receptionist at the place I stayed said he had never seen a Nigerian passport before, so they made a souvenir of my passport. I was pleasantly surprised at that but it made sense, in part because of their own lack of curiosity, but largely because Africans haven’t fully embodied the essence of traveling the way the Europeans or Australians do, and have yet to reach that far. This I believe makes CountlessMiles unique in its approach and impact – consciously encouraging Africans to travel the world in a unique way, while subconsciously opening up better tourism relationships with other countries and hopefully less visa hassles for Africans, especially West Africa. At CountlessMiles, we say “Your vacation starts with You”, because we focus on curating authentic personalized experiences for any African looking to travel, based on their budget and travel preferences. The primary service we provide, which is crafting a destination experience, is very customer-centric, while most of the competition seems to be focused on creating group trips that people can sign up for. The travel industry across West Africa is very fragmented and has many small-scale operators. How will you identify the best operators that are able to deliver the experience your customers are expecting? The great thing about experiential travel is being able to connect with the locals, the culture, and the new environment. This is the approach we take at CountlessMiles – visit the countries ourselves, get immersed in the culture, meet the locals and get information about the best offerings in the region, and build informal long-lasting relationships with potential partners. This way we are able to curate the best and most authentic experiences for clients based on first-hand knowledge and experienced recommendations. Another useful resource that has worked particularly in West Africa is leveraging on our network across the region. Luckily through my travels and life path, I have been blessed to meet people who are key influencers in various West African countries. I am working with them to develop a list of the best operators that we