 What inspires both of you? What inspires me or us? First is that knowing that there are families and there are many people who actually depend on us. That makes us wake up every morning thinking somebody somewhere depends on us. So I cannot sleep because there's a kid that will not go to school if I'll not work hard or work smart and there are other families. Do you know before we came into the picture as born for adventures in somewhere Kenyan coast, Diani, Mombasa hotels used to close for low season between April and June they used to close. When we came into the picture we started doing, handling a lot of domestic tourism hotels from that time have never closed they only close when they need to for renovation. Imagine we change the whole history of a whole area just because of coming into the picture. Welcome to born for... Wa That's a huge office. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know why you guys started on the desk. Yes, that time 15 years ago. It was just two of few. Yes, two years, 15 years ago, two of us. And now we enter this office and see a number of people working for you guys. Yes. How does that make you feel? We feel humbled because it takes two to tangle and it takes their effort is what has made us to be where we are. So we know it's a concerted effort. We work as a team. So all these guys here we are together working day and night to be able to achieve and for the coming to be where it is. Actually, like for me I come here like once a month so they take care of everything. So how many offices now? We have ten branches eight within Nairobi, two outside Nairobi. So now the next plan is to expand internationally starting with Dubai because it's a major outbound destination. I heard Kenyans love going to Dubai. It's okay. It's uncountable. Which of the awards made you shed tears? Two. I think you would say it's two. The first time we won world travel awards I couldn't believe it because for myself personally in school I never received any award. I was not a top student. Like me. He was the top three in their school. I think people are hearing the success story of Welfare Adventures but I wanted to know the lowest point of Welfare Adventures. Before Covid we had gone to Victoria Falls. Yes, and the year... Valentine that year. It was 2019. We had gone to Victoria Falls. So we could hear there was some flow in China. So we didn't know where it was. We were thinking this is not for us. Normally when you hear there is a disease somewhere you don't think it will. Then after that the skies were closed. We could not believe we thought it was a joke because in this age and era we had never thought something would come and close the skies. The place that parking was about to park Pilots go home. There is nothing to do. Some clients were in Dubai in different parts of the world and some could not be able to travel back. I remember it was the pressure that we had that particular time. We have never, I don't think we have ever had that. Imagine we had clients across the world and skies have been closed. Handling those clients. Some don't even have enough money. We have to take care of them in a way. Was there living there? Yes. The losses that we got through Covid was too much. What did you learn from that? We learnt that the world is very unpredictable. You never know of tomorrow and anything can happen. Do you know we went losses of maybe between over 2 million dollars or 3 million dollars losses? Have you recovered those monies back here? We recover as we progress and sometimes in this business, the service business, you have to develop a thick skin. Hospitality, industry, every part is a moving part and there is so much that is beyond anyone's control. There is so much that is beyond my control or your control. You can have someone, an airport closed in Santorini right now and you have clients there. You are making or not clients making but you have to solve that. Is there travel and tour the only business that you guys are running for at the moment who you are into other sectors? No, we are into other sectors but hospitality being the main. You cannot put your eggs in one basket. This is the mother company but we are also opening other... We are related to industries like hotels and apart from that we are manufacturing, we are farming and many other things. Our goal is to be able to supply food to feed the tourists in the hotel. We are doing a lot of fruit farming. We hope to farm all kinds of fruits especially the exotic fruits. I guess you guys are not just employing 500 people. If you guys are farming definitely you have workers in the farm if you guys are into the hotel business you can employ people from the hotel business I don't even want to ask how many hotels they have. It's good to see that some people depend on an idea so that makes you, keeps you going. You cannot adapt because you know somebody somewhere depends on you. You are going to school somewhere and you don't even know there is a nani somewhere employed by someone who is working who that nani has a kid somewhere who that kid depends on you. It makes you keep on going. Every day you wake up I have to work hard because of those things and I don't... Actually for now if we said we shut down and we want to retire and sleep we would still survive but now we cannot do that because of all these people depending on us. Will you say traveller and top business profit traveler? Yes because it has worked for us and no because it has still not worked for so many people actually when we opened the business so many companies were closing down it was after the post-election and then the wastegate thing so a lot of travel agents were closing down and that's the time we were opening Yes so but what I would say is that travel agency business requires balls requires brains requires a lot of hard work and also being smart. Dedication, persistence that to be persistent passion it's so it's a business that every day many many tours and travel companies open and sometimes then among all that it requires a hard work. What we did is that most of the time and why our clients prefer because before we give you a package first we need to have some part of that package ourselves either ourselves or we said our team some places we are not able to reach because of time we said our team so when you tell you we are taking you somewhere to buy this hotel most often than not either one person at bonfire or many people have sampled that so we will give you the correct another thing is that whatever we promise we offer that when we tell you we are able to take you this we offer this that's what we offer so people are able to trust us over a long period of time goes whatever we tell them we deliver What has been the major challenge that bonfire adventures have faced so far? The challenges I think that we face a lot, many among us it is the human resource what does that mean? It means that as we have millennials or young people who come into to be the one who are the workforce you find that sometimes you are not able to get when they see us having fun in Dubai they think they apply for jobs and they think when they come to bonfire their work will be having fun so when they come here and they realize it's a lot of hard work because we give them targets and they have to meet targets we expect zero complaints from the clients so the job requires a lot of hard work it requires a lot of dedication but we also reward them very well so a person a person expect to be traveling to be traveling but not to be sitting making sure other people travel because our work is to sit and make sure our clients travel when you look back to see where you've been now and what you guys have been able to achieve so far how does that make you feel when you look back we get humbled we get humbled because we have seen that with dedication we the team supporting us to achieve the goal of the company and with the hearts of God we have been able now to achieve a lot and we feel humble that these have been able to happen and without God for it I actually always tell people that what I've seen with bonfire I know that success is possible it depends with the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work hard to achieve your dreams I've realized many people like they want to live my life but if you tell them to what it takes the work they need the sacrifices they need to do to achieve those dreams they are not ready so you have to have the will power to work hard and success it's not one time event it's a progression you have fast to at least to crawl as a baby take the baby steps even the company if you want to open a company and within 6 or 3 months you want it to be like bonfire it can never be possible do you guys have regrets? I think my major regret is not starting earlier you know like for me my journey I took so many other courses before I knew what I really wanted to do so if I would have started tourism straight from foam for then I think I would even be further than if you started earlier you wouldn't have met me one thing I like to advise young people is that this is an internet era a digital era it's very very tricky not like before right now people should know that internet never forgets and like now when we are doing interviews do you know we have to do a background check on social media and some people you are not called for an interview just because of what you write on your social media during your normal time if you are those people who abuse people on your social media however good you are according to the company policies and co-values we might think this person cannot fit into a co-value you might lose an opportunity just because of how you write on social media do you know an email just an email can make you lose an opportunity if you email a sweet16 at gmail.com I am giving you I am giving you a deal of maybe maybe a million dollar do you think I would give an email sweet16 at gmail.com I think you are not serious if you are if your social media out your foot is an avatar not your real picture I think this guy or your name or your social media maybe you have written Lucy Lucy you know I might think you are not as serious as it should be so guys whenever you are doing just know that some people are watching and some things people might never forget and people might go into history that might be an archive somewhere where people will be able to remove it and tell you was it you who was telling people here they are not wise or they are stupid was it you how did both of you put your differences outside to build one of the biggest travel and talk company in the whole of East East Central Africa I think what have come to realize they say two cannot work together unless they agree so for us to run the company I would say 90% of the things we agree maybe the 10% of the issues which we don't agree and that's where you have to say that let's go with his idea maybe he still has a point sometimes he also makes me like let's go with your idea maybe you have a point so we've learnt to give the other person a benefit of doubt but of course there are those moments where I feel if we go for this idea maybe we'll make a loss and he strongly feels this idea is a big one so there are moments where we have like agreed to disagree so we also have that moment of agreeing to disagree I think what we have all agreed is that what is the ultimate objective is customer satisfaction it's the good company winning and if everything goes towards towards that then you find it's easy for us now because it makes us have that objectivity objective and we're able now to sell through we are not in competition we compliment each other and the CEO he's a MD so me being more senior and I say well I'm good it is good and I don't feel as if I am lesser person lesser CEO actually that's the one we once went for a meeting in one of the hotels and the guy told us that for me if I would work with my wife I think we would divorce the same week and I was so shocked I was like then how do you live in the house I don't understand I hope people in the comments section can make me understand but for me I would not have a better business partner than him and even the things that we try to do like individually they never do as well because we give each other motivation we compliment he has his strength I have my strength so when we put them together they form a very good cocktail when we do a swat analysis on each other it's a compliment how is bonfire impacting the society there are so many ways that impact the society as a private sector first there are some kids that we pay school fees for assisting our kids to pay we have at different stages lower primary to secondary school and there are some schools that we support schools that are different supporting the schools and paying the school fees those are two different things apart from that we inspire and motivate train a lot of the young people some we put them for internship at Bonfire Adventures and we able to mentor them up the land so that they are able to become and some have become good good people into that in the society then sometimes we pick up some street kids and we nurture them and some we open for them some businesses and some we get for them some jobs in different places so that they can be able to be people who able to take care of themselves so so for those who want to join the travel business I would like to tell you it is a very exciting career especially the young ones who are in high school you never choose this career and let me tell you it is a very rewarding career and attorney rewarding it also gives you a lot of exposure to see things from another eye from different parts of the world I would say it is to see things in different eyes so like for me out of travel even when I interact with people even my children because they have traveled a lot they in another level so it is an exciting career to be in and but I would like to tell you it is not as rosy as it looks when people look at us they think our work is just traveling whining and dining and you know just enjoying soft life we work so hard the days I have slept in this office are countless I want to advise the youth especially the boy child you know these days I have seen an increase of the boy child who do not want to wake up and smell coffee wake up and work the boy child we have to wake up we have to roll our sleeves and we gonna work as I said success is not a one time event it is a progression and boy child if you want to get the best in this world you have to gonna work if you want to get the best wife if you want to get the best car that means drive the best vehicle if you want to get the best be the best house you gonna work and if you be patient there is no success that is spontaneous none it has to be progressive you have to wake up crawl stand baby steps walk slowly start running and achieve it that is to the boy child and with the internet as internet never forget please make sure whatever you are doing your parent can be your parent watches this watches whatever you are doing or reads whatever you write they can be comfortable just know that if that is not the case ask the few question you can be able to ask it's not true don't share it on this note I will say to you guys thank you so much for watching and believe me or not this is one of the best videos I have ever done and all you need to do for me is to first of all like this video share this video so that others can have a piece of this my name is still Mr. Gani Baby your one and only annoying village boy from Ghana and I will see you all in the next one peace out