If a delay in your schedule gives you the following benefits: When you want to go on vacation or work, you need to travel from one place to another for best results. It will probably do you a world of good to try Wakanow.
Travel offers us unique opportunities for rest, relaxation or just new experiences, but before we get to the point where it all begins, there are always a lot of things to do and a lot of hurdles to overcome.
From getting the money needed to embark on the trip, choosing the location, booking transportation services, packing, handling other luggage needs and a million other considerations depending on where exactly you are headed , there is a lot to consider.
A hectic pre-trip experience can spoil an entire trip for you, and even when you reach your destination, there are still considerations of comfortable accommodations.
Wakanow was originally called Zeep Travel when the two friends founded it in 2008 as a closed-loop B2B hotel reservation platform for travel agencies.
Since then it has grown into a one-stop booking portal for flights, hotels, visa assistance, vacation packages, airport transfers, an international travel SIM, a prepaid travel card, a loyalty program and more.
The Wakanow.com portal offers customers a wide selection of top travel deals. As the website puts it, it enables them;
“Research, plan and book your national and international travel from the comfort of your home and from anywhere.”
They are also provided as part of the services, an “interactive call center and physical travel centers numbered 34 listed across Nigeria with a dedicated travel center strategically located at the international airports for clients.”
Wakanow currently has offices in Ghana, Dubai, the UK and the US. In 2017 they launched plans to expand into several African countries and the rest of the world.
At the 2016 ATQ Travel Personality Awards in March last year, Wakanow Founder and CEO Mr. Obinna Ekezie was named Travel Man of the Year. The award, which recognizes entrepreneurial and individual contribution to the growth of Nigeria’s travel and tourism sector, was a fitting recognition of Wakanow’s impressive growth.
The Wakanow boss: basketball star as a businessman
According to the organizers of ATQ Travel Personality, the Wakanow boss won the highly competitive award for his relentless build of one of Africa’s largest and most respected travel brands with subsidiaries in the UK, Dubai and the US.
Obinna Ekezie’s story is inspiring. At 18 he left Nigeria for the United States. From 1995 to 1999 he received an athletic scholarship to the University of Maryland. During that time he played for five National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and represented Nigeria at the World Basketball Championships in Athens, Greece in 1998.
However, he retired early from a successful professional basketball career and on a trip home discovered the great opportunity in the Nigerian travel industry.
Obinna Ekezie was immediately drawn to this need in the Nigerian market, which at this point in 2007 had over 1.5 million travelers. He rightly predicted that the space of gains would ripen for any innovative company that would use the technology to bring ease and cheaper fare options to Nigerians.
Wakanow.com, or Zeep travel as it was called back then, didn’t run smoothly for the first two years that that space filled. However, all of that changed when Wakanow was chosen as the official ticketer for the 2010 South African World Cup.
Also in 2010, a CNBC Wakanow feature gave the platform even more visibility, and after executives at New York-based multi-billion dollar investor Tiger Global saw it, they made an undisclosed multi-million dollar venture capital investment in the startup up of travel technology.
Wakanow.com never looked back
With the much-needed financial boost, Wakanowexpanded to handle flight bookings, visa processing, pickup service and B2C hotel reservations with a plugin for over 45,000 hotels worldwide. It was also necessary to expand the workforce, and their personnel capacity soon rose to 180 people.
A Fastest Growing Tony Elumelu WinnerWakanow.com doesn’t want to slow down as there’s so much more competition to contend with in the travel industry.
Now that we’ve fully evolved into what it is today, here are some things that are easy to understand with Wakanow.
book a flight
A very interesting thing about Wakanow is that not only does it allow you to book your flight, but you can also book a taxi and even accommodation before you leave. You can easily book flights online with international airlines such as Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, British Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Kenyan Airways and many others. It also offers local flight booking services for Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, which can also be booked online.
While there is an option to book flights either on their website or through their app, the Android mobile app isn’t the best at the moment, just like the ios.
office and contact details
Wakanow has offices in various countries including the UK, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
Here are the office addresses and their contact details:
London Office : 3rd Floor, 46/50 Coombe Road, New Malden, Surrey, KT34QF, United Kingdom
Telephone number: +44 (0) 2035383369
Email: [email protected]
Nigerian Office (Head Office) : Lot 8, Elegushi Beach Road, Ikate Roundabout, Lekki, Lagos
Telephone number: 0700WAKANOW (07009252669), 07030095727 07028413705
Email: [email protected]
Office in Ghana : Ground Floor, Millennium Heights Building, 14 Casely Hayford Road, Airport Business Park, Accra
Telephone number: +233 242 435515, 0307082484
Email: [email protected]
Kenya Office: Ground Floor, Viking House, Waiyaki Way, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya
Telephone number: +254 (0) 207640793
Email: [email protected]