Hi there,

We have 2 cool new tools for you to try out.

1. When doing a social shout-out, why not use your own personal referral link? That’s right, check the bottom of this email for our brand-new referral programme – it’s all automated; you share The Open Letter with a friend using your unique link and you instantly win prizes. (We’ve loaded a few vouchers for now, but more awesome stuff coming soon!)
2. You can now join the conversation by leaving a comment on posts in this mailer – look out for the “leave a comment” button and have your say.

In this Open Letter:

• Return of the tourists: Get ready to capitalise.
• Data-heated pools, AI-revived Steve Jobs & sky-rocketing prices.
• Keep it short: MedTechs capitalising on short-form content.
• Coming up: Amazing lineup at AfricArena JHB next week.
• Don’t miss it: Community building & scaling globally.

TRENDING NOW

The Tourists are Back

With shiny new tech opportunities….

It’s no secret that Covid and its consequent lockdowns wrecked the tourism industry. Airport arrivals and departures decreased by 71% in 2020, costing 470k people their jobs and virtually bringing operators to their knees.

But recent reports suggest that the tourists are coming back! Not quite at the levels where we can dish out R1 billion sponsorships for London’s second-best Premier League team, but encouraging signs nonetheless.

In Dec 2022 and Jan 2023, we saw a jump from around 116’000 international visitors (during the same period a year ago) to almost 378’000. A 3x increase, however, still 130’000 odd tourists less than the 2019-2020 season. Meaning there might still be more to come.

A reset for an entire industry

With so many jobs lost and tourism operators closing down, the return of tourists sees a great reset for the industry. There’s market share to win, and it might be a good time to adopt new technologies.

Work from anywhere

Many companies have adopted a work-from-anywhere policy by now, and South Africa is a kind of “middle-earth” where daylight hours overlap quite nicely with other parts of the world, meaning SA can be a great longer-stay destination.

But what does this mean for travel? Well, apart from longer stay accommodation, these travellers still want to experience the country, maybe through shorter excursions or experiences. Moreover, longer stays mean no hotel concierge, so there is a greater need for digital technology and local recommendations to make decisions.

The checklist for winning in the rise of tourism

• Capitalise on travellers making use of digital (and social) for making travel decisions.
• Use technology to enable short-notice bookings.
• Package the deals in half-day excursions.
• Offer authentic local experiences.
• Use AI to match and support the decision-making experience.

And startups in this space have felt the impact of this growth:

• BagDrop collects and stores bags on checkout days. With most international tourists staying in Cape Town for 3 nights, that last day is a valuable extra excursion day – if you can find somewhere to store your luggage safely. That’s why BagDrop has seen 1’250 bookings in 2 years – a 170% increase in sales year on year.
• Local Knowledge is building tech to take on travel advisors. This smart matching service helps travel bloggers and promoters find and sell authentic local experiences. It’s early days for them, but they’ve seen a 7% week-on-week growth since launching late last year.
• And PayGenius, a payment service provider with the majority of its customer base in the tourism sector has seen a 60% increase in transaction volume compared to a year ago.

Now, a looming global recession does throw a damper on things. But it's worth noting that SA is and always has been a “cheap and cheerful” destination for North America and Europe, so there’s still reason to be optimistic.

Many operators have learnt to be lean. And the adoption of technology will allow us to do even more with less. Do you think tourism is back for good or are we hitting recession first? Join the conversation by leaving a comment.

IN SHORT

Get some advice from Steve Jobs: How voice AI and ChatGPT can bring back your heroes. Creepy.

Smarter home cash: Tim Nuy’s African neo bank Fin (formerly Finclusion) is now also moving into the home loans space. Is anyone still taking out home loans at these interest rates?

Tighter belts: Oh oh, interest rate hikes seem ineffective as SA prices and core inflation keep rising.

Try again: Bankserv & Reserve Bank want PayShap to force “legacy banks” to change, former FNB CEO Michael Jordaan says it is unlikely unless “the service is free”.

Unicorn hunting: African startups raised almost 10 times as much funding in Feb compared to Jan 2023, with the bulk still going to fintech.

Be careful who you influence: Several finance YouTubers handed a $ 1 billion lawsuit for promoting FTX. (No politics, though, plaintiffs are just normal people pulling together for what they think is right.)

Tech for good: How a UK data centre redirected its waste heat to warm community public pool.

Gamestop, the company that shot to global fame when a short squeeze orchestrated by a group of people on Reddit sent its share price into orbit. This week they surprised everyone by reporting a quarterly profit for the first time in 2 years. Go gamers!

New contender: Google’s AI Bard is now live, but not available in SA yet, unless you try VPN?

WATCH THIS SPACE

Keep it Short

Notes from inside the “Attention Wars”

Remember when Time Magazine said our memories were worse than goldfish? Well, that’s been disproven on both accounts, but new data shows our attention spans seem to have dropped from about 2.5 minutes on a screen in 2004 to 47 seconds today.

And a 2019 Danish study points out that you can see it in Twitter usage, where the average trending time of a Top 50 hashtag dropped by 32% from 2013 to 2016:

Indicating, the study notes, that our brains seem to have limited capacity for cultural hype, but FOMO makes us try to squeeze more into less time. (Note: Things are slightly different for learning and knowledge-based work, but it’s worthwhile noting the demand for online courses, which often break things up into shorter, bite-size content, also increased by 66’000% from 2011 to 2019.)

And we can see it in the marketplace too with the rise of short-form video across all major platforms.

Which of course sparked a whole host of short-form video editors like Funimate, YouCut etc.

Capitalising on the trend

While many creators have already started capitalising on the trend, we’re very interested in those that are using short-form videos to deliver meaningful and high-value content.

Take Med-EdTech startup Four Minute Medicine, for example. After reading a UCT study that the average attention span of students is less than 4 minutes, they developed a new 4-minute short-form course content to help medical pros in the field recap on topics they might not have dealt with in a while. So instead of dusting off the old 1600-page medical journal, doctors can simply browse a selection of short-form videos and dive straight into a specific topic at hand, keeping the doctor’s knowledge fresh without wasting their time or – even worse – their attention.

This trend is also why Ollie Health is introducing shorts on its platform. Think Netflix, but for a healthier mind and on short, insightful mental health topics.

The content is practical and relatable aiming to make an impact in short bite-sized videos. Providing real-life stories of tackling anxiety, burnout & habits for peak performance. The outcome: 60-sec therapist frameworks you can use daily.

Keen to give Ollie shorts a try?

Ollie shorts are available on the Ollie health platform. And don’t forget, during the month of March, The Open Letter readers can get unlimited credits for their entire team for a month.

­

COMING UP

AfricArena, the JHB Edition

The countdown to next week’s AfricArena Johannesburg Summit has begun! There are 6 days left for you to secure your spot at this game-changing event. Running 29–30 March at The Forum in JHB, it features some of Africa and the world’s best speakers.

Delving into Deep Tech, Hardware, Enterprise and ClimateTech, speakers include Savant CEO Nick Allen, Launch Africa’s Zachariah George, Norrsken22’s Natalie Kolbe, Adbot CEO Michelle Geere and many more.

We’ve got 5 tickets to give away!

To win a free ticket hit reply and let us know you wanna go (first come, first served), or secure your spot via Eventbrite or Quicket.

DON’T MISS IT

By now you know our next Open Conversation is happening next week Wednesday, 29 March at 12:00. Stephen van der Heijden has amazing startup experience: From OfferZen and Uno Digital to scaling at OLX Group and more. And he’s currently leading OfferZen’s European expansion.

So we asked him to come in and give us the lowdown on scaling – the metrics that matter, creating useful feedback loops and, of course, going global.

We’re thinking you probably don’t want to miss this one. Register here.

ONE LAST THING

Some of you have been listening to How would you build it on Youtube. It’s now also available on Spotify!

This week Bobby and Renier dive into SportTech. Ever wonder how you would build a SportTech startup? Give it a listen.

DID YOU LIKE THIS WEEK’S OPEN LETTER?

How did we do this week?

• ❤️ Loved it
• 😔 You've done better
• 💩 Today was meh

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS

Right, so some of you have been sharing The Open Letter, thanks for the ❤️. Now we are upping the game and rewarding all of you for sharing The Open Letter. So be sure to use your unique referral to tally up your score.

For now Takealot vouchers, in future, we have some cool stuff planned.

This Open Letter is brought to you by Renier Kriel, Jason Mill and Elvorne Palmer. And we discuss these topics every Thursday on our Linkedin page.

Did we miss something? Hit reply and tell us what trends you’d like us to explore next.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.

Find more awesome business ideas from South Africa's favourite startup and tech newsletter.