Travel Sawa Failure to Penetrate Egyptian Inbound Travel Market, Case Study

Travel Sawa is the first Egyptian company specializing in destination and group travel tours. The company was founded by Amr Badawy, an Egyptian nomad explorer who has travelled to more than 60 nations. Amr developed a love for travel writing and blogging before transitioning into a career as a travel photographer and filmmaker. His movies have amassed millions of views. More than 500,000 people have joined the social media platform. The organization is a branch of the Best Egypt Company and holds tourism license A number 307. The establishment of Travel Sawa company was contributed by the founder’s belief in travelling, which made them establish the firm to help people who dream of travelling but do not know how to find a suitable trip with a suitable budget. The main goal for the company was to help everyone travel, learn new cultures and become ambassadors for their countries all over the world. The Egyptian economy’s significant growth was a sign that Sawa travel company registered positive market growth and performance in terms of profitability. Although Egyptian was an effective market for the company due to the country being a paradise for all adventures, the company failed to leverage the domestic market due to restrictions put in place during the pandemic. The competitive domestic market significantly impacted the travel sector, particularly Sawa, making it fail to penetrate the Egyptian inbound travel market. Despite the extensive travel restrictions and decreased travel demand, significantly impacting Egypt’s inbound travel sector, the well-established travel company in the country made Travel Sawa fail in the market. In order for the company to remain effective in the market, it had to adapt to new realities of the travel industry by pivoting to focus on domestic and alternative forms of tourism that were possible to earn income, such as eco-tourism and adventure, and health tourism. Due to the restriction, the company failed to penetrate the Egyptian travel market because it had to implement health and safety measures to reassure potential consumers and comply with relevant regulations and guidelines (Samir, 2022). This paper discusses the applicable business model that Travel Sawa agency should implement to penetrate the Egyptian national travel market after failure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Introduction of Business Model Canvas

Travel and tourism businesses have flourished since the emergence of globalization. People now incorporate travel heavily into their lives. Travel agencies are expanding as a result. E-commerce has been essential to the expansion of the travel sector. Nowadays, travel agencies can reach customers anywhere in the world and present them with the finest possibilities. Startups like the Travel Sawa Company must use strong business models in order to enter the Egyptian inbound market successfully. One of the significant business models that can be effective for the company is the canvas business model. This is essential to ensure that Travel Sawa tour company penetrates the Egyptian domestic market and attracts new consumers through brand recognition (Varsha, 2023). The impact of the development of new technologies, such as the internet and globalization, is evident in both the worldwide travel industry market and the domestic market in Egypt. It has made it essential for the new entrants in the Egyptian competitive market, like Travel Sawa, to adopt the Canvas business model because it enables the organization to articulate its business model (Debarliev & Mitrovska, 2016). The business model canvas visualizes a company model highlighting all important strategic elements, such as income sources, operations and consumers (ProfileTree, 2022). It is one of the significant models for a company like Travel Sawa because it allows the company to see and assess its strategy effectively in addition to offering the business a wider overview that it can use to remain competitive in the market, such as changing the model when it grows and make changes such as expansion in the market, new revenue sources and market change strategies.

Discussion of the Model

The important aspect about the Canvas business model is that it will help to analyze the current situation of Travel Sawa company and see how the company will work, especially in the competitive domestic market in Egypt. On the other hand, the important aspect about BMC is that it helps provide the company with an effective framework to communicate their business model clearly and concisely.