From five apartments in Syokimau to 6,000+ hotels across Africa

The success of Nairobi Airport Hotel exposed a much larger gap.

Across Africa, good independent hotels were losing business because travellers could not find them online, their rates were not managed properly, and their rooms were missing from the channels where guests were already searching. The hotels existed. The demand existed. The connection between them was weak.

In September 2014, Håvar and Endre launched Savanna Sunrise. The name was a nod to the optimism of the Africa Rising era, and the company was incorporated in Dubai with the intention of building across several markets from the start.

The first plan was broad: manage and market smaller hotels. Then a long hotel-management negotiation in Uganda collapsed. The setback forced a useful decision. Full hotel management was slow, complicated and difficult to scale. Online distribution, digital marketing and commercial support could be rolled out much faster.

Savanna Sunrise narrowed its focus, and the business took off.

By the end of 2014, the company was working with 15 hotels. By the end of 2015, that number had grown to 130, with monthly room sales approaching USD 80,000. Kenya and Uganda were built in parallel, followed by Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other markets.

The model was practical. Savanna Sunrise helped hotels create stronger online profiles, secure good photography, connect to major booking channels, manage reservations and remain available to guests around the clock. A 24-hour customer service operation became a major advantage at a time when many independent hotels could not respond quickly to a booking request from another time zone.

The first office was the smallest guest room at Eden Gardens, Endre's guesthouse in Lavington. There was nothing glamorous about it. It was close to the hotels, close to the work and cheap enough for a young company that was putting almost everything back into growth.

Endre was already working on the company full-time. At the end of 2015, Håvar followed, committing to the new business full-time.

The side venture was now the main event.

In 2017, Savanna Sunrise entered talks for a major cross-border merger with a competitor operating in Nigeria. The proposed deal attracted plenty of attention, but it did not survive due diligence.

The process still revealed a better opportunity. The Nigerian company had not fully consolidated with the Polish technology business behind it. Savanna Sunrise opened a separate discussion with that company and completed a smaller, cleaner transaction.

The Polish company was called Hotel Online Sp. z o.o. The combined group needed one name that could travel across markets and explain the business in an instant.

HotelOnline was the obvious choice.

The company then moved into Nigeria, one of Africa's largest and most competitive travel markets. A group of Nigerian investors put in USD 75,000 and, more importantly, helped the company understand the market, build local relationships and recruit the right people. The move turned an East African startup into a genuinely pan-African business.

The name changed in 2017. The problem we were solving did not: help African hotels become easier to find, easier to book and more profitable.

HotelOnline learned early that expansion did not always have to begin with a blank sheet of paper. Sometimes the fastest route into a new market, product or team was to bring in a company that had already built something valuable.

In 2018, HotelOnline acquired or merged with several businesses, including the Cityhotels online travel platform, the award-winning Teranga Solutions in Senegal and the Norwegian holiday rental business Solferie. Teranga added technology, talent and a foothold in Francophone West Africa. The Nordic businesses added experience in short-term rentals and new operating capabilities.

In 2019, the company combined its Norwegian operations with Key Butler's to strengthen that side of the group. HotelOnline also raised a further USD 320,000 from existing shareholders and new investors.

Every deal was different. Some brought software. Some brought people and local market knowledge. Some opened doors that would have taken years to open organically. Together, they made HotelOnline broader, more visible and more resilient.

By the fourth quarter of 2019, the work was paying off. HotelOnline reached break-even for the first time.

The team entered 2020 expecting its strongest year yet.

Then the world stopped travelling.

Years earlier, Savanna Sunrise had chosen eZee Technosys as a core technology provider. eZee was later acquired by Yanolja, the South Korean travel technology group backed by SoftBank and Booking Holdings.

In May 2021, an email arrived with an offer that would have sounded improbable back in the five-apartment days: Yanolja wanted to invest in HotelOnline.

The deal took ten months. It involved legal and financial due diligence, two law firms and the relocation of HotelOnline's holding company from Dubai to Singapore. In March 2022, the investment was completed and later announced publicly.

It was Yanolja's first investment in Africa. For HotelOnline, it brought capital, technology and validation from a global company that understood hotel software at enormous scale. It also traced a direct line back to a technology relationship first built in India six years earlier.

The investment helped HotelOnline rebuild past its pre-COVID level and prepared the company for its largest transaction yet.

In 2023, HotelOnline returned to profitability for the second time and recorded USD 7 million in gross sales. By then, the group had grown to more than 6,000 hotels and hospitality businesses across 27 African countries.

Those numbers tell part of the story. The more important change is what HotelOnline can now do for a hotel.

Today, the company helps properties run their daily operations, sell rooms across major online channels, manage rates and availability, take direct bookings, process payments, improve their online presence and make better commercial decisions. The technology is backed by local teams who understand African hotels, African payments, African markets and the realities of operating with uneven connectivity.

Independent hotels and small chains remain at the centre of the business. They are often excellent at hospitality but do not have the technology departments, distribution teams and revenue specialists available to global brands. HotelOnline gives them access to those capabilities without forcing them into systems designed for a completely different operating environment.

The company's work in Zanzibar points towards the next phase. As an approved property management system provider, HotelOnline is helping accommodation businesses connect hotel operations, distribution, payments and required reporting through practical digital infrastructure. It is a model with relevance far beyond one market.

HotelOnline is still building, still adapting and still focused on the gap that started everything.