Travel · Hospitality marketplace
Building a reliable stay marketplace for African travelers and hosts.
Finding reliable shortlet apartments or boutique stays in major African hubs like Lagos, Accra, and Nairobi has historically relied on word of mouth or risky social media DM bookings. As co-founder and product engineer at Rumi Africa, I worked to replace that uncertainty with a verified, dependable marketplace platform.
Live product
Current product view from rumi.africa
A marketplace only succeeds if both sides trust it: travelers need accurate photos, clear amenities, and guaranteed reservations, while hosts need reliable calendar syncing and timely payouts. Technically, we had to ensure fast page loads on 3G mobile connections and handle payment webhooks gracefully across regional payment processors.
Overhauled the web booking flow to cut unnecessary steps. Property pages were redesigned to load optimized image galleries instantly, even on low-bandwidth connections, which helped improve checkout completion by 15%.
Many African travelers and property owners manage everything exclusively on their smartphones. I architected the Android client to give guests quick access to upcoming trip details and let hosts respond to booking requests in real time.
Structured the booking state machine to handle edge cases like double-bookings and delayed payment gateway webhooks without leaving guests in limbo.
Rumi Africa helped make discovering and booking stays across the continent simpler and safer. The platform established an infrastructure that bridges international standards with the realities of African commerce.