Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG) recently published financial results for the year ended at 31 December 2019. The financial results offer an interesting look at the company’s financials, COVID-19’s impact and the role of RTGs Super App – Gateway Stream.
I won’t focus on the financials and other things in the repor. For that go here. I will instead focus on the Gateway Stream app and what the company has to share regarding that.
What is Gateway Stream?
RTG’s Gateway stream is a platform we’ve written about before. The application/website was launched in 2018 and has been downloaded 5 000 times since.
The Gateway Stream aims to create a booking convenience for every hospitality and tourism transaction that takes place in Zimbabwe
Tendai Madziwanyika – RTG CEO
It allows users to do a number of things which include;
- Booking a hotel, lodge, holiday home, cruise, holiday packages
- ordering food, drinks and groceries;
- online shopping;
- ride-hailing;
- and more…
Rainbow’s financials describe Gateway stream as a super application (think WeChat) and layout the role they believe the application will play going forward;
Of significance in 2019 was the successful upgrading of the Group’s hotel facilities as well as the set-up of subsidiaries to conduct tour operations and the activation of the new business: Gateway Stream.com super mobile application. These subsidiaries will transform RTG from a mere hotel Group into a diversified, tech-driven hospitality, tourism and retail business.
Tendai Madziwanyika
In 2019, RTGs focus with the application was recruiting hospitality products and just browsing through the application proves strides have been made since it’s initial launch. Beyond just hospitality, the app is actually an e-commerce hub with listings for the aforementioned services.
What progress was made last year?
By year end, RTG is said to have listed 12 000 rooms across 15 countries in the Gateway Stream application. Beyond that RTG notes that Gateway Stream contributed nominal revenues last year. Unfortunately they didn’t disclose the exact amounts;
While the focus for 2019 was setting up of the [new] businesses, the entities managed to contribute some revenues consistent with the typical first-year performance of a new business, confirming their viability in the medium to long term.
The CEO is also proud of RTGs logistics prowess. In the report, Mr Madziwanyika states: “Gateway Stream’s competitive edge is its ability to offer a secure payment platform, a diverse product offering and last-mile delivery capacity to all regions in Zimbabwe.”
Going forward
In terms of what lays ahead for Gateway Stream, RTGs financials where not exactly clear. The statement given by the CEO regarding this reads;
The Group will continue to deploy its resources towards supporting its key strategic pillars, which can be summarised as follows:
– Capacitation of the Gateway Stream to ensure the company participates in transactions that take place in the travel and tourism space in Zimbabwe.
It’s not exactly clear what capacitation means in this context. Does RTG intend to add more service providers in-app (both hospitality and retail)? That’s what I got from that statement but more clarity would’ve been welcome.
Regardless, the fact that RTG is banking on this application is made very clear by the statement below;
Through Gateway Stream, the Group will provide a unified global diversified commercial ecosystem, one that creates ownership of markets with multiple, perpetual residual cash flow streams.
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