Yako Africa, tailor-made specialist in travel to Uganda, started this year with the Visual Tour Builder (proposal tool from TravelSpirit). “People don’t expect us to come up with such great quotes,” says Thijs. Together with his wife Anne, he runs their travel company from Uganda. And it’s going well.
Who is Yako Africa? In 2016, Thijs and Anne moved to Africa and arrived in Uganda via some detours. From running a guesthouse, Yako Africa was born. Thijs about his company: “It literally means ‘your Africa’. The guests in our guesthouse, mostly students, wanted to make trips through the country more and more often. Then followed the parents of students, who wanted to make full trips. We started organizing those trips and that’s how Yako Africa was born.” Now full focus on Yako Africa After the guesthouse, he ran a lodge of which Thijs and Anne are co-owners. That’s all going well. Yet the real passion is in Yako Africa and that can only be a success if all the attention goes to that. In 2022, the duo decided to go all out to organize tailor-made trips to their beloved Uganda. The travel company is being prepared for the next step, because there are plenty of ambitions.
Good systems ensure that you can pay attention to the right things, in our case the customer. – Thijs, Yako Africa
Website, quotes, everything has to look great The brand and website are designed with great care. At the same time, the search for the right partner for a good proposal tool starts. We immediately look further ahead. Because in order to grow and continue to live up to the personal touch, you need to have good tooling. “Good systems ensure that you can pay attention to the right things, in our case the customer.” That is Thijs’ conviction. The choice falls on the Baarn-based TravelSpirit.
Images make you eat! The Visual Tour Builder is the solution for us to send out quotations that impress customers. – Thijs, Yako Africa
Simple, efficient and impressive The working method in Word and Excel was not efficient for Thijs. And the quotes in PDF weren’t impressive enough. Together with TravelSpirit, an inspiring output was realized that fits seamlessly with Yako Africa’s corporate identity. On mobile or desktop, it always looks good. Directly with links to additional information. View example proposal Drawing up a quotation is now very easy, much less error-prone and only takes half the time. Thijs explains: “Every trip is tailor-made, of course a lot of overlap, but always something unique. We have organized our content well and this is how we quickly create tailor-made proposals. With the same ease, we adapt it to the customer’s wishes. Just as many times until the trip is perfect.”
It looks so cool! We’re already looking forward to going. – This is how Yako Africa’s customers react
People are really surprised when they receive the quote Previously, Yako Africa lost bids to competitors, even though they were more expensive. Simply because the quotations were not good and comprehensive enough. The reactions of customers now are: “It looks so cool! We’re already looking forward to going.” “It helps us to be even more credible, especially since we are a small company. And it’s still Africa, isn’t it?” Thijs says with a laugh. He continues: “Our distinctive character lies in the personal contact. Always an online introductory meeting. Then a cool digital quotation with extensive information and beautiful images. Almost everyone books.” And now optimize further with TravelSpirit Start Earlier this year, the new website was launched and quotes are now created or adjusted daily with the Visual Tour Builder. In the meantime, Yako Africa is also working with Travel Spirit Start. The entire workflow of mail, contacts, tasks and pricing is done from one system. “We’re a little surprised at how fast we’re going now. It’s great that we immediately took the step to organize our work process efficiently. We can continue to grow like this!”, says Thijs, who looks to the future with enthusiasm and confidence. Curious? View example proposal Want to know more about Visual Tour Builder or TravelSpirit Start? Please contact TravelSpirit.
