In 2023, over 350,000 tourists arrived in Seychelles, one of Africa’s top holiday destinations. These tourists’ spending makes up 20% of Seychelles’ GDP. Yet, until 3 years ago, a visitor’s first experience was not of paradise on a sun lounger, but of chaos at immigration. The Seychelles’ pristine beaches were reachable only via labyrinthine airport queues and triplicate paper forms.
That was until the Seychelles Government signed an agreement with Swiss border management provider Travizory.
Now instead of waiting days to hear back from the Seychelles embassy, travellers can apply for an e-visa in minutes. Upon arrival, hour-long queues and paper forms have been replaced by facial recognition gates that admit travellers using their biometric data.
Tourism’s Digital Transformation
The transformation at Seychelles border control has been dramatic. Waiting times for health clearance have fallen from 55 minutes per 100 passengers to just 8 minutes and for the first time international ICAO standards for overall waiting time have been met.
Travizory specialises in end-to-end border management for governments. In a few weeks, an entirely new travel authorisation and arrivals process can be implemented in the host country, saving time for legitimate travellers and making the apprehension of criminals and terrorists faster and easier.
Border management is an archaic industry
Just a handful of legacy companies provide the majority of technology solutions for countries around the world. The failings of existing systems are well known to Travizory’s founders, with four of the founding and management team being multi-year veterans of one of the largest incumbent providers. The team has seen countries waste tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars trying to build their own border security software, only to only to end up with sky-high maintenance costs from a homebuilt system, or to settle for a legacy tech provider’s product. Travizory was founded to offer countries the first genuinely new border management system in decades, and the first truly modern and tech enabled border management system full stop.
Transforming the B2G Sales Cycle
The business-to-government sales cycle is a notoriously long and winding road. Where Travizory has a striking advantage is that rather than being a financial burden, a Travizory border system is an income generator to a host country from day one. The company takes a small fee on each visa application, with the government adding whatever surplus they feel appropriate on top, depending on seasonal demand. For the Seychelles, Travizory has already generated over $1.3m in visitor fees, as well as $700,000 raised in voluntary donations for the government’s Environment Trust Fund. This makes it very likely that the government sees the ten year contract they have signed with Travizory to the end and beyond.
Exceptional experience, exceptional returns
It is rare to see a company that so comprehensively improves the experience of the end users (travellers), while also generating exceptional financial returns for Travizory’s immediate clients (governments). This exceptional degree of alignment has been enough to overcome the notoriously sticky business-to-government sales cycle in the Seychelles, and Travizory is now in late-stage discussions for 10+ year contracts with several much larger countries.
From an investment perspective, it is difficult to find such high quality revenue locked in over longer time periods, with no clear path for competitors entering the market. Add to that a founding team who have been building and selling for the space’s largest player for decades and the proposition becomes even more compelling. When it comes to improving the way we traverse the world’s borders, a new frontier has been crossed.
Written by David Linsey, Investment Team at BACKED, who was part of the investment process for Travizory. Andre de Haes has joined the Advisory Board as a Director and David has joined as an Observer.
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