4 ways to effectively work from home during the Coronavirus pandemic

/in , , ,

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is ravaging the globe and causing panic amongst nations. Many industries and businesses are already feeling its impact and the tourism industry is devastatingly hit the hardest. The extent of this impact would depend on how long the pandemic lasts, and while it is human to feel anxious and fearful, it is important to take the measures set out by the government and health officials. 

Due to the spread of the virus, most businesses are forced to change their strategy and adapt quickly to what seems like the new norm – working from home. There is no doubt working from home can be challenging, however, research from a Harvard Business review article suggests that people who work their same office schedule from home get more done per day. 

Here are four points to consider if/when you are working from home:

1. Start your day early

Waking up and immediately switching your laptop on to start your working day is not only an unhealthy habit, but you will find yourself burning out quite quickly as the day peters out. Start your day as if you are preparing to go to work. 

Doing this consistently creates a good habit and puts you in the right frame of mind to kickstart the day. Get out of your PJs and dress the part, spend some quiet time in meditation, exercise, listening to music or your favourite podcast, have a cup of coffee and even spend some time with your family before you do decide to switch on your screen.

2. Establish your workspace

It is important to note that whilst it’s a dream come true to work from home, if you’re not cautious you could quickly find yourself working on the kitchen counter, in the lounge and the bedroom. Working in these environments at home will most certainly take a toll on you physically and psychologically, therefore you need to be intentional when setting up your workspace.

Make a clear distinction in your mind when considering this, and that is, the kitchen is for mealtimes, the lounge is for rest and entertainment, and the bedroom is for sleep. Your workspace should be away from all distractions, you can call it your “in-house office”, make it clear to your family and pets that when you’re in your office you must not be disturbed unless it’s an emergency. 

Now that you’ve identified your “in-house office”, some important things to remember are:

  • Ensure your workspace is well-lit.
  • Set up a sturdy desk that’s clean and clutter-free.
  • A comfy chair that supports your back.
  • A good pair of headphones/earphones comes in handy if music helps with your productivity.
  • Make sure everything you need is within easy reach.
  • A bottle/jar of water and some snacks to ensure you don’t visit the kitchen too often.

3. Shift your mind to a strong mental state

Mind over matter, right? Absolutely! However, by now we know that working from home comes with a host of distractions, which can cause you to lose productivity and your focus. 

So how can you beat distractions and help push your mind in the right direction? Here are a few pointers:

  • Stay motivated – Listen to motivational podcasts to stay mentally sharp. Set clear goals for the day and perhaps have a checklist nearby to help you stay focused on all your tasks.
  • Avoid distractions – There’s a lot going on in the world right now and the temptation to watch TV and scroll your social media feed is highly tempting. Whilst it’s important to know what’s going on as far as the pandemic is concerned, the negativity can shift your mind to a state of panic and fear. Set specific times in the day to check your notifications or watch the news, whilst also making time to ensure your motivation levels are high.
  • Manage your time – Hours at your workstation will most likely get you fatigued, so take 5-minute breaks for every hour you’re in front of your screen.

4. Improve communication with your team

As you know, we at ResRequest love technology and are big advocates for digital transformation. With most countries now in lockdown, businesses are forced to adopt work from home strategies which include having a good communication platform such as Skype, Google Hangouts, Slack or Microsoft Teams to name a few. This may be a new way of communication for you, but if utilised correctly it can help you and your team reach your goals, even if you’re not in the same building.

Find appropriate times in the day/week to check-in with your manager/ team leader, as far as your KPA’s are concerned, and be sure to nott just disappear for days and weeks without communication. This goes a long way to ensure that you remain motivated and focused on accomplishing your goals.

How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

We hope that this separation from each other does not go on for a long period of time, but we also understand that in order to get back to the office and pre-covid life we have to self-isolate. We have witnessed how self-isolation / self-quarantine can help flatten the curve in China (here’s why this helps), and now it’s our turn to play our part. 

Our team met last week to plan on how we can continue to build product and help our customers while being in lockdown. We have implemented an extended work from home policy and although we’re isolated from each other and in different locations, we’re ready and available to take your Skypes, emails, and calls. Our development team is also feverishly busy building product, in order for us to continue giving you what you need when we get back to a (new) normal.

This extended work from home called for some additions to our existing work from home policies, which we’d like to share with you for you to glean some tips. (Take a look at our work from home policy).

Take a look at some of our heroes working in the comfort of their homes. Follow us on Instagram to see what we’ve been up to.


2019 unwrapped

/in , ,

Christmas wishes from our team

What’s kept us busy this year

We’ve had a great year preparing a bigger foundation for exciting plans we have for 2020. A big change we underwent was merging our team into our new Durban office, dubbed ResPlex. This merge meant moving 17 families from Richards Bay to Durban and we’re thrilled to announce that they arrived in true superhero style and they’ve all settled in well to the new climate and surrounds.

Our move was pretty smooth but it did not go without a few Kryptonite setbacks which may have affected you. We have still not found a reliable VOIP telephone system – please bear with us and feel free to send any suggestions if you’re a SA local!

Of course, our move meant we also had some key staff out of action which resulted in some slippage in our services during May and June but we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve fixed these gaps and our superhero strength is back!  

We grew our talent

We said goodbye to some team and we welcomed others. Added to our team are: Kenton to our data onboarding team, Gareth to our rate setups team, Jerron (with his superman strength) joined our technical team and Michelle leads our new user interface and experience team (UI & UX). On our design front, Ben jumped in to rock our marketing team and Natasha Cross joined us to lead our training programme and team. Clinton is our recent addition who joined our frontline support team, so you’ll be hearing from him soon!

We welcomed future recruits

Not only did we grow our numbers in the office, but also 4 sprogs were born to 3 of our wonder women.

We worked best together

Having our team all in one space has also given us many opportunities to host a bunch of socials including a poker afternoon and new office warming braai, with a team salad competition thrown in. Of course dress up for Halloween is always a hit and a chance to pull out some scary pranks.

[Above-left] Dev lunch at RocoMamas [Middle] Nathan and Brandon our office handymen and [Right] Tash showing off with her bundle of joy!
[Above-left] A very scary looking ResRequest crew all dressed up for Halloween [Middle] A lekker team braai at ResPlex and [Right] John, the kingpin of poker.
[Above-left] Walter chills after semi-grating from Empangeni to Durban [Middle] Nicol celebrated 5 years with a traditional custom cake (Lama design of course!) and [Right] We just adore our cats!

We loved travelling

We now service 600 properties in 19 countries, 2 being in Asia. So ResRover and Ntando attended trade shows across the globe including ITB Berlin and WTM London.

We grew stronger with ResPlex Talks

This year we introduced ResPlex talks hosting topics such as The evolution of Development Methodologies and Navigating cultures and customs in Customer Service. This new addition to our staff wellness programme has given us all the opportunity to broaden our knowledge and learn new skills.

We wrapped up the year with a great Christmas picnic

[Above] We celebrated our new-found spot with a festive Christmas picnic in our lush garden. We know that we have a talented crew so we opened the floor for a talent show where some of our talented sang, played the guitar and danced.

[Below] John, Keenan and Alex added some stunning vocals and chords while Mike awed us with his storytelling and magic tricks.

[Above] Keenan and John set the mood at our 2019 Christmas party

Jerron claimed our ‘ResRequest Strongman’ title in our impromptu arm-wrestling competition.

Because we love giving back to the community, the contestant’s participation prize included nominating a charity for us to donate to. The gift went to support the Neema Foundation and Movember.

[Above] The guys taking up the Movember 2019 challenge

We wrapped up the afternoon with our tradition of watching annual reviews from each of our departments to remind us of all that we have achieved and experienced this year.

And because of this incredible effort that each of our team contributed – Santa bought us some personalised mugs for Christmas, because every superhero needs a recharge.

That’s what we are, not just a team, but a family. One day we might be the justice league but for today, we are team ResRequest.

Here’s to 2020 – we hope it’s your best year yet! And ours!


Why we love automated testing

/in , ,
Automated-Testing-VS-Manual-testing

Why we love automated testing?

As a business that follows the Software as a Service model, ResRequest’s team is mainly made up of Developers and Customer Support consultants and we use many tools to help provide a great service for our customers.

Our Dev’s are in their element when nestled in front of multiple screens and have cool tools on hand to work with…

In this article our Dev team share what tools they use to test the product that they build and maintain.

Manual Testing vs Automated Testing

Manual testing is performed by a person carefully executing the test steps on computer software. Automation/automated testing means using an automation tool to execute your test case suite. This way, the actual outcomes of the tests can be compared with that of the predicted outcomes, to help identify issues, bugs, anomalies or limitations.

At ResRequest, we continually strive to improve our awesome suite of products. A lot goes into researching, developing, and delivering a great product. Automated testing is only one of a  myriad of ways that we strive to deliver the best product we can.

You might ask: “Surely manual testing is sufficient to deliver a product to the end-user?”. In many cases that’s true, but in today’s competitive world, filled with changing technologies and demanding user requirements, it is imperative to ensure stability. 

At ResRequest, we understand that developing quality takes time, and so, we recognise strategies need to be put in place to help keep us ahead of today’s break-neck pace. One of the many strategies we use to help us, in this regard, is automated testing.

Rationale

ResRequest values automated testing over manual testing, because:

  • Manual testing of every possible workflow, field, and scenario takes time and money.
  • It is difficult to manually test all different themes, layouts, setups, currencies, etc.
  • It does not require human intervention and can be run unattended.
  • Executing automated tests can be quicker than doing the same testing manually.
  • Automation helps cover bigger areas of an application, which prevents any unforeseen regression issues from occurring.
  • Even though we, at ResRequest, love testing and using our products, manual testing can sometimes be tedious and repetitive, and as a result, error-prone.

 

Benefits

 

Why spend time and money on automated testing? 

It brings the following to the table:

  • Can be a lot faster than manual testing.
  • Ensures consistency.
  • Improves accuracy.
  • Reusable test scripts.
  • Helps ensure stability of the final product.

What should be tested with automated tests?

Ideally, it should focus on:

  • High risk and/or business-critical areas.
  • Test cases that need to be repeatedly/regularly executed are also great candidates to be automated, as their scope should be well understood.
  • Testing that is very tedious or difficult to perform manually can also greatly benefit from being automated – computers don’t get bored.
  • Testing that is time-consuming should be automated, if it can be done reliably. This helps us focus manual testing on areas that would benefit more from having a little more human touch.

Disadvantages

Though automated testing has many advantages, it also has some disadvantages:

  • Proficiency in programming and some level of technical knowledge is required to write the automation test scripts.
  • Debugging automated test scripts is quite involved. Identifying limitations in the test script requires an in-depth understanding of the technologies used, as well as the application/software being tested.
  • Test maintenance is costly, as each update/improvement/feature may require an updated or new test case.
  • Automated tests cannot (and should not) entirely understand the end user’s use-case/requirements. The automated test case will simply execute a number of instructions and will not know if the end user’s experience can be improved, by changing the overall workflow of the software it is testing.
  • Automated tests can never beat a human tester’s expertise and knowledge of the application it is testing, and should, therefore, be used alongside manual testing and only where needed.

Selenium

There are many tools and applications that can help with automated testing of a system or software. At ResRequest, we have chosen Selenium for this task.

What is Selenium?

From the Selenium website: “Selenium automates browsers. That’s it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should!) be automated as well.

Selenium has the support of some of the largest browser vendors who have taken (or are taking) steps to make Selenium a native part of their browser. It is also the core technology in countless other browser automation tools, APIs and frameworks.

Selenium’s primary purpose is automating web applications for testing, web-based administration tasks can also be automated as well. Selenium has the backing of large browser vendors who have ensured that it is a crucial part of their browser. Browser automation tools, APIs and frameworks are just some of the platforms using selenium at its core.”

How does it work?

Selenium interfaces to a web browser’s driver, that driver then connects to the web browser to control it. The next step is to instruct Selenium on what to do, and it will take care of explaining it to the chosen web browser, in a way that would make sense to the relevant web browser.

What’s ahead?

Currently, we use Selenium and automated testing on some of our core products, but we plan to roll this out to as many ResRequest products as possible, in the future. All hail our robot overlords!

Our embarrassing travel moments!

/in , ,

We’ve all had them – those cringe-worthy moments when we want to laugh and crawl into a hole at the same time. Somehow these moments are more embarrassing when we are travelling, maybe because we don’t always know who’s watching!

 

We asked our team for some of their top most embarrassing moments. Put your coffee aside because you may spill it, and see if you can relate to any of these stories.

 

“I had a connection through Abu Dhabi in the early hours of the morning. Half asleep, I disembarked the plane in Abu Dhabi and sleepily followed the other passengers into the airport. It was only when I found myself being asked by taxi drivers where I was staying that I realised that something wasn’t right! I was in arrivals and not transit! The surprise gave way to panic as I only had an hour before my next flight. I started trying to find an official to ask how to get to the transfer lounge but it was 1am in the morning and the airport was empty. Finally, I ran into some flight crew and I tried to explain what had happened, they looked confused and pointed further down the hall. I raced off, heart pounding and arrived at immigration. This could not be happening. I had no visa but I was asking to leave the country! I stammered out the story to the gruff immigration officer and he called another officer ove. ‘No visa’, his colleague barked. I tried again to explain what had happened and begged them to let me through as my flight would be boarding by now. Together they started talking fast in Arabic and I wondered how bad the Arabic prison system was. Suddenly I was handed my passport and told ‘Go on. Your flight is boarding’. My legs felt shaky and I felt dizzy with relief that I had made it through. I arrived at the boarding gate just as they were finishing and collapsed into my seat, exhausted. It had been both the longest and shortest hour of my life ever!”

 

Another flight story on a very different aircraft and an even more nail-biting experience.

 

“We were travelling to a remote part of Africa from Joburg and were waiting for the plane from the lodge to collect us. The airport was full of commercial planes and a few large charter planes. We then noticed a small, unbelievably small, plane bobbing through between the bigger planes. We had a sinking feeling. Surely not? Could people even fit in that? The miniature plane came to halt and we got a phone call that our charter was ready. We went out to meet our pilot, and of course, he led us to the plane that we had been observing, which seemed even smaller close-up. Trying to suppress our nervousness, we loaded our bags and prepared for take off. The little plane seemed to take forever to lift off and sounded like the engine was taking strain. Finally we were in the air and the pilot tried to engage us in conversation but we were on the edge of our seats, unable to speak. It seemed like every breeze tossed the plane around. Throwing up probably wasn’t the best first impression to make, but it felt very likely! The two hour flight felt like a lifetime and we finally arrived at our destination, white-faced and shaking. ‘How was the flight?’, the lodge manager asked as we disembarked. We smiled weakly, ‘We’re so happy to be here’.”

 

Off to Europe for a train ride, a long day and some luck.

 

“Ten years ago, I was returning to London from a small town in Germany called Ahrensburg, and because money was tight, my travelling time was dragged out over 24 hours (2 flights, 2 trains rides, 1 hitchhiked lift and a bus ride) with lots of waiting around in-between them all. By the time I landed in London, I was extremely tired and as soon as I had jumped onto the tube out of Heathrow airport, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I realised that I had missed my stop and travelled to the opposite side of London! Thankfully I still had my luggage, but my chance for a hot shower and a proper bed would have to wait as I had to double back on the tube ride, and this time I made sure I didn’t close my eyes!”

 

How would you like to be without your luggage for three weeks while you travel around East Africa? This is what happened on one of our team members, and let’s just say, he now always triple checks his flight time.

 

“I arrived at the airport confident that I had plenty of time before departure. I was travelling to East Africa for three weeks and had quite a hefty bag to check in. I ambled over to check-in and thought I may as well check-in early and then grab a leisurely coffee to pass the time. However, that plan changed quickly as I was told that my flight was leaving in 20 minutes and it was too late to check in luggage. My cries fell on deaf ears and I tried to explain that I had read the flight time wrong. Now, not only was I having to sprint to get to boarding, but I had to leave my bag with everything I needed behind. Needless to say, the first thing I did on landing was to buy some clothes and deodorant. I learnt a stressful lesson and this drama is never to be repeated.”

 

Travel is exciting and always a big adventure but sometimes there are unpredictable hiccups that make these trips even more eventful. These dramas sometimes make the best stories with valuable lessons attached. What are your most memorable travel adventures?

ResFit 2.0

/in ,

We kicked off 2018 with our staff wellness programme, ResFit and mixed it up a bit. Our movie theme teams were named, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad. Everyone earned points for activities they completed individually or as a team. As with last year, we included charity givebacks in our activities.

And the winning team was the X-Men and Jaco took the prize for the most individual points. Angie won for most creative photos submitted and Chantel won for most enthusiastic.

Let’s take a look back at the ResFit year …

The year that was, 2018

/in , , , ,


2018, what a year! It seemed to fly by Batman on his way to Gotham! Our ever growing team gained several new staffers, John came on board as a junior Developer, Carlos strengthens the Dev Maintenance team, Sam and Jason became a full-time Testers, Brad and Dylan joined the Data ranks full time and Chantel has filled a Support team role full-time and Nathan adds to the Support consulting crew. Simone is our new Brand and UI designer.

John donates blood; Dylan and Chantel get into the Halloween spirit and Brad finds his desk in full festive spirit! 

We also had a department shuffle with Technical forming its own department and Mike passing the Development lead baton on to Nicol. Some of the Empangeni crew joined the Kloof office ahead of combining both offices in Kloof next year.


Nicol, Tash, Simone and Kristen get creative for Halloween!

ResRover, our mascot, was welcomed into the family and immediately went travelling to trade shows all around Africa, namely Pearl of Africa, WTM Africa, Indaba, Kilifair, Magical Kenya and S!TE and we also visited several clients on our travels and ResRover racked up a few passport stamps.  

ResRover also helped start our Instagram page this year. We share behind-the-scenes photos of ResRequest life as well as photos from our travels around Africa. Give us a follow if you haven’t already.

Autumn was marked with an office clean up, Pack-for-a-Purpose drops and we donated several old computers to The Wellness Centre Trust and other items to the SPCA.

The office clean-up; Angie collects food items for the disadvantaged; Jaco drops off our donation for Pack-for-a-Purpose.

Suddenly, it was July when we held our mid-year AGM and our team-build saw us solving crime scene investigations at The Chairman in Durban. Our theme for the year, ‘Our Story’ was brought to life by Jill who showed a stunning video of the stories we help to tell through our clients.

We held our AGM in July; Nicol enjoys the pizza at our team build; the winning detectives at our CSI team challenge.

On a sad note, we said goodbye to Jen who headed back to Zambia.

Halloween was celebrated with gusto as always with the Empangeni crew beating Durban in the costume stakes, and snacks. Take a look at the photos below!

Halloween is always fun!

As the year came to close, we held a Masterchef Potjie Competition where teams competed to cook the best potjie at the Krantzkloof Conference Centre. It turns out we have some talented chefs and Frikken Chicken was declared the winning potjie. Following lunch, we wrapped up with every department presenting their achievements in video format.

It’s been an incredible year with so many new additions both in the team and product features. We are looking forward to a very exciting 2019!

Our year end function was a potjie competiton.
Team Frikken Chicken were the winners of the potjie challenge.
All in all, a great year!

Top travel trends

/in , , ,

 

The hospitality industry has changed rapidly over the past few years, largely due to the increasing digitisation of all aspects of life. Let’s look at some of the trends these changes are bringing to the industry.

 

Data-driven

Data is all the information you can collect about a person or activity. Data analytics uses all this information to show trends, forecasts and build reports. Hotels and lodges are starting to collect this data on their guests, potential guests and the preferences of both so they can offer a tailored service and more personalised approach. For example, you can use data analytics to personalise your summer sales campaigns to target guests who like to travel in summer. This more personalised campaign is more likely to get a positive response.

 

Tech

Technology is driving the trends in most industries, and the hospitality one is no different. From apps on your phone to unlock your room door to choosing your own entertainment, lighting, meals and pillows from your phone! Hotel management is also shifting to cloud-based services and reducing the number of IT experts needed. Customer service has also gone online and allowing real-time feedback is far more important to management than hearing about complaints weeks after the guest has left. Collecting all the customer service feedback into a single space accessible by all staff is also part of tech’s influence on the industry.

 

Millennial

The millennial market (people aged between 18-34) is a fast-growing travel market. They are tech savvy, like personalised services and flexibility. Hotels and lodges that offer a seamless check-in using a mobile, or offer gourmet ‘Instagram’ meals and a fast wifi will be top of the list for most millenials!

 

Wellness

Health and wellness is another trend that is impacting multiple industries. Guests are increasingly more health-conscious and want to maintain a healthy lifestyle while travelling. Thus the need for gyms, in-room equipment, healthy food options and spas are becoming a standard requirement for many hotels and lodges.

 

Environment

The green trend is growing globally and more and more guests are aware of the negative environmental impact that travelling has and want to offset some of that where they can by choosing environmentally friendly places to stay. Hotels and lodges that recycle water, grow their own produce, use solar energy and energy efficient lighting are some of the features that guests are looking for.

 

Quirkiness

Standard, chain-type of hotels and lodges will find themselves behind the trend if they offer the same experience whichever location one visits. Guests like hotels and lodges to have quirky/unique touches such as themed bathrooms or roomed names. This can extend into the personalization discussed under data, such as providing custom music lists.  

 

These are just some of the emerging trends changing the hospitality industry. If you have experienced something new or interesting on your travels, comment below and let us know! You could be on to a new trend!

 

References

Bizcommunity

Site-minder

The ResRequest story

/in , ,


The African wildlife experience is on many people’s wish list. Thousands of people travel to Africa each year to live a safari dream – to witness sunset game drives and afternoon thunderstorms amidst spectacular game spotting. Africa is home to numerous quality and luxury safari lodges which offer an unforgettable experience coupled with spectacular views and authentic architecture.

But while your dream trip unfolds, have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to make these experiences happen?

Running lodges is a demanding job and staffers work hard to ensure that guests have the ultimate personalised trip. Behind the scenes, myriads of people are working tirelessly to plan and record a seamless guest itinerary, secure transfers, record guest preferences and personal details. All this information requires a system comprehensive enough to both record and track it. ResRequest is a reservations and property management software solution specifically for remote lodges, camps and boutique hotels.

ResRequest’s crew visit these properties to train and consult the staff on using the software, and team members get first hand exposure to the safari experience at these establishments and it helps them understand the needs of these lodges.

One of our support consultants visited a lodge near the Kruger National Park in South Africa. It was her first time at a safari lodge, and coming from the city, she was stuck by the tranquility of the bush.

“The silence is breathtaking, and then you hear the faint crackling of twigs and out of nowhere, you are faced with the spectacular sight of an elephant walking to a watering hole a few metres in front of you.”

It is this experience that can only be found at a safari lodge in Africa. There are few places in the world where you can take a swim in your personal plunge pool overlooking a dazzle of zebra (that’s right, a group of zebra is a dazzle!) grazing outside your private chalet. Sunset drinks on the balcony with a typical African sunset and only the sounds of the bush, followed by a gourmet meal in the warm evening air, and a nightcap around a log fire are what guests can expect when staying at a place like this.

Games drives are one of the main attractions for guests and without exception, an array of  wildlife from lions to impala, to dung beetles and elephants and unique flora, are a given to be seen. The guides have spent years working in the bush and can read the animal’s journey from its spore and can almost always track the animals down. They have many stories to tell of their encounters with the wildlife and it’s this personal touch that adds something special to a guest’s stay. A game drive with a guide is an unparalleled experience and must for all visitors to the African bush.

While these remote destinations are an attraction and draw card for guests, operating in such isolated areas can be difficult in terms of internet access. ResRequest uses a cloud hosted system which syncs with offline servers at the property. For remote safari lodges with a poor internet connection this means that they can continue operating and offering a fine experience to all their guests.

So the next time you’re travelling to a beautiful lodge in Africa and have a seamless check-in and stay, remember that it is all thanks to a dedicated team working behind the scenes to ensure your African safari experience is all you hoped for and more.

To learn more about ResRequest Enterprise, visit our product pages. 

 

(Photo: Odzala Discovery Camps)

Witness the fitness!

/in ,

ResFit is back and better than ever. This year, ResFit 2.0 launched with a movie theme and new teams. The concept remains the same, with individuals and teams capturing the activities they do in their branded t-shirts and competing for points. Points can be earned by participating in fun stuff mainly falling into four categories: interest, tech, give back and sport.

(Office early morning pilates)

The aim of ResFit to encourage our staff to be active personally, as a team and within the greater community. We want our staff to explore their interests and hobbies, maybe discover new ones and we want to support the community through actions, not only donations. We aim to complete one give back per quarter and each team is encouraged to co-ordinate an outreach.

(Dylan of Suicide Squad and Chantel of Guardians of the Galaxy baking up a storm)

So far, we’ve had home-baked treats the office, scored some artwork for our office space, played Pokemon Go and flown drones. Many of our geeks love playing online games and one even develops computer games. As a company, we have supported Pack for a Purpose, an initiative that encourages travellers to pack for the communities they are visiting. We packed stationery school supplies for the rural schools supported by Lilayi Lodge.

(Jaco and Mike handing over our Pack for a Purpose package to Lilayi Lodge’s community initiative)

We have also collected pet food for local SPCAS and, for Mandela Day, we answered an international call to contribute time to the community on Nelson Mandela’s birthday to honour his legacy and help make the world a better place. We partnered with The Seed Fund to help clean up a local informal settlement, paint houses and plant a vegetable garden. Fitness is a popular ResFit choice and we have a few very sporty people amongst us with one even representing South Africa at underwater hockey and others attending pilates classes or playing squash.


(Jaco flying his drone)

Results so far:

Leading team: X-Men

Individual with the most points: Jaco

Most enthusiastic: Chantel


(Some of Team X-Men helping The Seed Fund clean up at the Malacca Road informal settlement on Mandela Day- 18 July 2018)

ResFit 2.0 will run until the end of the year when the grand winner will be announced but until then we have Spot Prize Winners who are announced on our social media platforms.

(Team X-Men had an office ‘Autumn’ clean out and found lots of stuff to recycle and donate to the local charities)

ResRover goes to Uganda

/in , ,

 

ResRover’s latest journey was to the Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo organised by the Uganda Tourism Board. We went to explore with the aim of increasing our footprint in far-flung Uganda. ResRover was already on his debut tour to Tanzania with Mike but luckily Ntando was able to pick him up between flights, to take him to Kampala.

(ResRover switching flights from Tanzania to Uganda)

Excited to experience a new country, Ntando was impressed by the expanse and beauty of Lake Victoria when approaching Entebbe International Airport. It had been a long trip to get to Uganda and the journey wasn’t over upon arrival. It turned out that the drive to Kampala felt almost as long as the taxi battled through Kampala’s notorious peak hour nighttime traffic!

(Photo: Kampala Express)

 

Although there was no time for sightseeing, Ntando was impressed with Kampala from what he saw from the taxi. He wouldn’t mind going back to experience what the rest of the country has to offer and pencilled in gorilla trekking and visiting Murchison Falls for the next visit.

 

Friday was the start of the expo but due to ‘Africa time’ fashion, it only got going around mid morning as the exhibitors were still setting up when he arrived to visit the show. The expo was opened by the Ugandan Minister of Tourism and then it was time to get down to business!  

Ntando visited stands and came across a few exhibitors who fit ResRequest’s profile of properties. There were also a number of travel agents who could benefit from ResConnect. He was happy to see Wild Frontiers exhibiting, and to hear them say how much they enjoy using ResRequest.

 

(Wild Frontiers at the expo)

 

Overall, although the expo was small, Ntando felt it was still worthwhile to represent the ResRequest brand in Uganda – and to also get a few more passport stamps for ResRover! Next stop Zambia and Cape Town.