The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) initiated Africa Tourism Start-ups competition in 2018. The title of the maiden edition was UNWTO/AUDA-NEPAD Tourism Tech Adventure: Promoting African Tourism Innovation. 

The initiative was purposed to supporting the African tourism start-ups, to contribute to the transformation of the tourism sector. Five star-ups were selected in the 2018 edition and got exposed to world’s tourism leaders, investors, corporates, academia and supporting business partners, to pitch their start-ups.

The pitching competition saw Mr David Gonahasa, the Managing Director of Roundbob in Uganda, and Ms Codou Olivia Ndiaye, Co-founder and Project Manager of LIVES in Senegal, emerge as winners. Mr Gonahasa and Ms Ndiaye were rewarded with scholarships by Madrid based IE Business School to further develop their start-ups into big businesses.

In addition, the five participants were introduced to various innovation hubs in Madrid, which included: Wakalua (Tourism Innovation Hub); the Amazons Innovation Hub; Airbus Innovation Hub and Google Campus for further mentorship.

The call for application for second edition of the completion is currently running globally. African youths are encourage to join the rest of the world in submission of application. Please see application link here: https://tourismstartups.org/