Even after knowing about a coming trip many months in advance, very often travelers find themselves in last minute preparations—doing important things on the 11th hour a head of the journey. You really don’t want to choose a hotel that you will live in for whole week, in a foreign land, randomly. It is better to visit a website that helps to share people’s views and compare different hotels before taking a decision to check in into one. Kadibra, a platform developed by a senior six student on vacation at kLab innovation space, enables tourists to compare hotels in easy way and to make reservation online. The booking system is easier, faster and provides enough information for a client to make informed choices. It therefore takes into account the needs of those that want to make last-minute reservations. This idea was inspired by real life childhood experience that Abraham Ahishakiye, the managing director of Kadibra, had while shopping with his mother. “I remember when I was child, whenever I went to shop with my mother, she didn’t pay before comparing the quality, price, and the function of items. So, I realized that people need to compare prices and quality before consuming any item. That is why I decide to make an app that clients can use to compare hotels,” he said Kadibra also gets to solve the headache faced by tourists and visitors that change hotels because they judged the hotel from its outer look. “With this project, we managed to get many other opportunities. Some companies approached us for technical assistance on their websites, web apps for programming, branding and design online. We have learned a lot from this journey that we just started, but also benefited a lot from advice from people who have been in the market longer,” says Ahishakiye. The Kadibra platform also helps people to make quick and efficient decisions and save time. The company that is now made of 10 students targets everyone that is planning to come to Rwanda and doesn’t have an idea on which hotel suites their needs and is also close to whatever is bringing them to Rwanda. Kadibra is signing up local hotels but seeks to develop a similar app for other countries and creating a one-stop centre for booking, comparing hotels and leaving comments that benefit other clients that will use the same hotel in future. Problems faced by Kadibra Much as the youth-led team is working hard to make Kadibra a success, they are still faced with great competition from similar apps that have been on the market for long and offering similar services. However, the founder says he does not fear competition. “We are not scared of competing with other companies; as we believe we still have a lot to learn. After all, this is our country and we understand local problems here better than foreigners. We want to use that to our advantage and build our app to do the same but be more specific to the regional market,” he says. Ahishakiye is very optimistic that he will make it and this app will create a huge opportunity for him and his friends. Kadibra hopes to grow and become as big as TripAdvisor, the biggest travel reviews website in the world that makes nearly $1 billion in revenue per year. It boasts of more than 60 million members with numbers growing everyday.
