How Start Up TravellingCheapskates Is Making Domestic Travel Affordable. Travelling can be expensive, especially for black people as they are the most disadvantaged. Making travelling affordable for ordinary South Africans will allow them to experience it in a different way. Travelling domestically should be introduced as a great hobby that will give South Africans a chance to experience exotic places that they country has to offer. Travel companies should make this a priority because this will boost the local Tourism industry and open up South Africans to different cultures, societies and ideas which will enrich their mindset and influence a new way of viewing things.
Travelling Cheapskates is a social enterprise that puts together budget travel packages for in and around South Africa. It is black female owned company that specialises in custom made and pre-packaged deals for groups, solo wanderers, families and couples. The company was co-founded in 2011 by Philile Nzimande and Pearl Nkosi. Nzimande said in an interview with Skift, “When you engage in a diverse country you learn from the different regions you visit and discover that everybody has something to contribute.”
Personal experience counts when it comes to encouraging young black South Africans to start travelling. The founders build trips that they would like to take too and feel like they intimately understand their customers. It also believes in creating close ties with each customer to best understand their travel needs and preferences. They also partner with events in tendering a mix of deals such as accommodation and music; ticket and activities. TravellingCheapskates has a social impact where it subsidises educational travel for rural schools in KwaZulu-Natal.
The idea for Travelling Cheapskates was inspired by the desire to inspire local people – particularly the many untraveled black South Africans – to discover their own country’s diversity. “We saw that there were no young black people in the places we travelled, we were always the minority.” explained Nzimande.
