As the founder and CEO of Travelwings, Africa’s leading online travel agency, Albert Fernando’s dream is to create new job opportunities in travel and e-commerce across the continent.

“There are 1.2b people, 60% aged below 25 and apart from Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius and South Africa, there are no real online platforms. How can we facilitate that? We want to be the market leader to transform things.”

Fernando, who himself started as a reservations staff at the age of 17 at Dnata, Dubai, eventually ending up as its global head of e-commerce, founded Travelwings in 2016 under the auspices of the travel conglomerate, Satguru Travel Group.

Albert Fernando: ““You need local payments, local call centres, local pricing.”

Since its founding by chairman Anil Chandirani in Kigali, Rwanda in 1989, Satguru has grown into a travel network covering more than 70 countries worldwide, and has interests in corporate travel, a B2B consolidator (Toptraveltrip.com), destination management (it acquired Orient Tours, a DMC in Dubai) as well as online travel through Travelwings.

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