Cape Town - Business has been booming for a Khayelitsha-based township tour company which recently expanded to include car rentals.
“Business has been good for us during the festive season. We exceeded our targets,” said Loyiso Mfuku, co-founder of Khayelitsha Travel.
The company, which was started by Mfuku and his partner Mvuyisi Mbono, organises township tours for locals and tourists and in October ventured into car rentals for both locals and tourists.
The fleet of cars includes luxury cars like Mercedes Benz, budget cars like Volkswagen Polo Vivos, and 10-seater kombis.
“We were surprised by how the car rental business went up, because its new and not everyone knows about it,” Mfuku said. Their target had been to rent out about 20 cars during the festive season but instead they rented out more than 30 cars.
“Between October and December we have rented out over 90 cars. And the main support comes from locals even though we get tourists as well,” he said.
Mfuku said people were interested in their service because it was convenient. People no longer had to go to the airport when they wanted to rent a car but instead could just go around the corner. He said it had helped that many other car rental businesses had been fully booked over the festive season so people used their service but word of mouth had also played a big role.
“At the moment we are a small company but we are planning to grow the business and expand to other areas where we see the need for our services,” said Mfuku. He said the rates ranged from around R200 depending on the kilometres a client wanted.
“When someone wants a car they tell us the kilometres they want and then we put it in the system which was provided by Bidvest Car Rental, our partners, and then the system will work out the rates,” he said.
Cape Town Tourism’s Nicole Biondi said that travellers increasingly wanted to experience not only the iconic attractions of the cities they visited, but also the less “touristy” spots. “They want to go where locals go.”
She said, tourism businesses in townships were ideally positioned to cater to this trend. “Doing a township tour is a great way of connecting with the people who live in those townships and being inspired by their stories.”
Cape Argus