Poor salary pushed Ntale to start own business

Tourism is his rhythm and rhyme, more than simply a passion. Benedict Ntale is managing director of Ape Treks Limited under which he operates Ape Travels and Holidays in East Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And given that apes share habitats with other wildlife, it opens the company to birding, hiking and savannah wildlife excursions.

Starting
Well, before arriving at the name, he considered Zenji Safaris, Africa Quest, and Great Apes.
They were already registered and taken. He needed something close to primates since Uganda is the primate capital of East Africa. He also needed a short name. Ape Treks was just that.
The journey into tourism began with ‘Overland Trucks’ which used to park in their home compound with tourists at Butende, on Masaka Road.

He was keen to find out what tourism was all about. “Without going academic, I, personally describe tourism as a temporary escape from the usual. I describe tourism therapy to misconceptions, stereotypes and a magical pill to remedy ignorance. I look at tourism as self-discovery and the most effective way to understand the world around us,” he explains. He goes on to argue that much as there might not be a universally accepted description of tourism, most academic definitions focus on their aspects; travel from ones’ home to another place, travelling for purposes of leisure, business and focusing on attractions, amenities, activities and accommodation, among others.
“Are pilgrims also considered tourists? I think so Uganda considers everybody who comes in and spends a night in Uganda as a tourist. This is one of the reasons we can have 1.8 million arrivals yet we only get 150,000 of them in our national parks,” he adds.

Capital
After 13 years, he decided to start Apes Treks, with knowledge, experience and contacts as his principle capital. “I had personal savings to a tune of Shs5m, part of which I used to rent an outlet, on Millennium House in Nsambya, in November 2015. Ape Treks still maintains the same address. The beginning was not very hard because I perfectly knew what I was getting into. I was psychologically prepared for long spells of no earnings,” says Ntale.

Turning point
After two years since dipping his leg in the murky waters of business, the heavens opened their gates and Ntale landed his first major deal. “Luckily, I was hired by the Fund for Global Human Rights to coordinate their donor visits to Uganda. I managed to earn some money to keep me going. Tourism business has a gestation period of at least a year of working without actual earning. One must be able to persevere that dreadful time. I have seen companies start on a very high note, big office, a fleet of vehicles and elaborate branding. It eventually hits them and they start downsizing and selling-off vehicles,” says Ntale.

Working smart
In the business, the tour operator accommodates all categories of clients because most of Ape’s safaris are tailor-made safaris.
It handles international school groups, volunteer groups, birding groups, families with children and young couples, among others.
They basically target guests that are interested in authentic African wild safaris. As he explains, when he was at the travel school, he learnt that it is not smart to target a single market. “Economies crumble, disasters hit, wars break out etc. It is upon this background that Ape Treks widens the scope clients search to all parts of the world in our reach. We have guests from South America, Southwest Pacific, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa and North America. This said, about 50 per cent of our guests come from Western Europe,” Ntale explains.

Dynamics
The dynamics in the tourism industry affected business operations and projections. “Local dynamics have a lot to do with policy that is not at all protective of the indigenous investor in tourism. Influx of entrants in the tourism industry. I was surprised to learn that about 100 MPs own tour companies. The industry is flooded by both the serious and jokers. Pricing below operational costs, substandard service delivery and tourism related crimes are at record rise,” he argues.
Ape’s MD adds that mismanaging information flow in Uganda and insensitive reporting always puts tourism at stake, for example reckless reporting on disease outbreaks, rebel activity and street protests scare away potential guests.

“Any traveller to third world destinations invests significant time in research and reading about it. On the international scale, most markets where we go to look for guests are saturated. There are already people selling Uganda thus we find it hard to win over agents.”
His argument is that there are many destinations to choose from, thus one has to have specific interest to come to Uganda. It will therefore take a lot of convincing to win over a new, naïve and fearful traveller.
“Some markets are hard to crack into, investing in marketing intelligence is costly for an average tour operator. Unless we seek to work with local tour operators in these destinations, it’s hard to break through.”

How Ntale does it
In doing business, Ntale will start with product development, there is prior need for thorough assessment of what an average traveller to Uganda would look out for.
“We develop various packages with an Ape experience including chimpanzees, gorillas, golden monkeys and Ugandan mangabeys among others. We have a destination manual that covers every touristic element of Uganda and major tourism attractions in East Africa and Eastern Congo.”

Marketing
Tour operations are basically about product development, presentation over official website, blogs, social media platforms, mass-emailing, newsletters as well as responding to inquiries, making bookings, creating client files that we finally handover to guides to execute safaris. Then there is pricing of the tourism packages for tourists which is dependent on tariffs from UWA and special tour operator rates from suppliers like lodges, activities like rafting etc.

Ape Treks’ director further explains, “Tourism has three main elements: transport, accommodation and activities and or attractions. Before we price, we create itineraries that form the basis for the pricing. We have three levels of safaris i.e. luxury (best available), mid-range and budget; the basis of this is accommodation and sometimes the mode of transport used.”
For a minimum of two people on a three-day visit to Murchison Falls National Park, as an example, Ntale would charge $350 (Shs1.2m) per person per day, dependent on prices, activities one takes and the national park they choose to visit.

Tourism, like any business, requires certain traits. “An intimate and personal approach to every details of the client requests. Service in both English and French language, we hope to soon offer our services in Mandarin. Timely response to clients’ requests and flexibility to accommodate feasible needs,” Ntale explains. He supervises a team of three staff, in office and four tour guides who he constantly trains and equips with new skills as well as sending them out on familiarisation trips.

Challenges
Losses in business are part of the challenges. He says some agents are dishonest because they will pay part of the money agreed and promise to the pay balance at the end of the trip but end up not paying.
Underquoting as internal error is another challenge that affects business accounting processes so he will end up running part of the trip out of pocket. The lessons have been learnt.
He has put in place administrative mechanisms to avoid recurrence of losses. Some of the lessons have been from his mentor and former employer, Kelley MacTavish.

Journey
Background. Ntale joined the tourism industry in August 2002 after graduating with a diploma in International Air Transport Association (IATA).
He worked for Pearl of Africa Tours as a travel consultant and tour manager between August 2002 and November 2015. There, he was able to get good on-job training and exposure as he handled both in-bound and outbound travel.