Name of your website?Tofo Travel
Your name?
Joanna Gregory
Your Location (city, etc)
Tofo Beach
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Holiday accommodation in Tofo Beach, Mozambique plus properties and businesses for sale in Tofo and Tofinho Beaches, and information on our property management and other services.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
A website is the most essential advertising tools that a business can have today so we launched our site at the same time that we launched our business.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This website - Tofo Travel - in 2006 when the company was established. We tried to make the website as informative as possible to give people information on Tofo and not just to promote our own business but to promote Tofo as a whole.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
It was the name of the company and that name was easy - we wanted to promote travel to Tofo, hence ... Tofo Travel!
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Our website is a lot more comprehensive, offering not only information on the services that we provide but on our beach area as a whole. Not many sites take the space to give more information that is really necessary to promote just a company or service.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
We've been in Mozambique for many years and the end goal will be to sell our investments.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
In this part of the world, as I suppose in any, the more time and effort we put into the project (although not necessarily money), the more successful it is. You have to work to succeed - success won't just fall into your lap while you sit waiting for it.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I'd invest in better software to enable me to make it look more professional. Having said that, the simplicity of the site does seem to appeal to people.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
No, as this is just a small operation. Its why I think its better to develop more slowly so that you are able to grow at a manageable pace and keep service and standards high. Its what we have done in the past with other companies.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Living and working in a foreign and developing country, there are always aspects that you are not aware of and its very difficult to find out information - there have been some unexpected problems that have cost us time and money but nothing that we've been unable to deal with.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the answers to our questions about how to run a business in this part of the world so that we can move ahead with our projects. Dealing with red tape...
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Word of mouth!
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not at all - the process has been very simple
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
3 years and it will continue as long as the company continues to run
What is your website address?
Tofo Travel
