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By Ugochukwu Sylvester Ugwuanyi
Nigeria’s hospitality industry is increasingly discovering that technology can do more than help guests find a room. It can change how hotels, shortlet apartments, guesthouses, villas, resorts and the travel agencies that market them connect, transact and make money.
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That is the thinking behind HomeFairyTech. A technology platform seeking to bridge the gap between hospitality businesses and booking and travel agencies. The platform addresses one of the persistent challenges in Nigeria’s shortlet market: multiple layers of intermediaries that can push up the final price paid by customers.
At the Hotel Expo Nigeria 2026 in Lagos, Fortune Okeke, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HomeFairyTech, argued that hospitality operators should not have to build properties and then struggle to fill their rooms when a large network of booking agents is looking for inventory to sell.
“Why build a hotel only for your rooms to be empty when there are people hungry to market your inventories and listings?” Okeke asked during a presentation titled “Bridging the Gap Between Hospitality Businesses and Booking Agents.”
The idea resonated with participants, including one attendee who, according to Okeke, was inspired to consider entering the shortlet apartment business after the presentation.
But beyond the business proposition lies a larger story about how digital technology is reshaping Nigeria’s hospitality ecosystem.
Technology Is Changing How Hospitality Businesses Find Customers
For years, hospitality businesses and booking agents have relied heavily on personal relationships, telephone calls, WhatsApp groups and multiple layers of intermediaries to connect available rooms and apartments with customers.
Okeke said HomeFairyTech itself began in that environment.
The company initially operated through a WhatsApp group and telephone calls, with agents marketing properties belonging to its parent company. But other property and shortlet owners began approaching the business to help market their inventories. As this happened, the informal model’s limitations started to emerge. Those limitations became increasingly apparent.
One property, according to Okeke, attracted about 400 agents seeking to market it.
That experience helped. The company identified an opportunity to use technology to formalise the relationship between property owners and booking agents.
“In November 2025, we came up with a platform that connects hospitality businesses with booking and travel agencies,” Okeke said.
The platform subsequently evolved into an app through which hotels, shortlets, guesthouses, villas and resorts can make their inventories available directly to agents.
HomeFairyTech currently focuses on Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. There are plans, according to Okeke, to expand into other Nigerian cities and eventually other African markets.
Tackling the Hidden Cost of Multiple Intermediaries
One of the most interesting problems HomeFairyTech is attempting to address is pricing.
Okeke said the company discovered that a booking could sometimes pass through as many as five additional agents before reaching the final customer.
Each intermediary potentially adds a markup to ensure a commission, creating a chain that can substantially increase the final price of a shortlet or hospitality service.
“Rather than allowing them to arbitrarily mark up what they are meant to sell your property, we came up with an app for recreational facility owners to list their properties, state the price and the commission they are willing to pay the agents,” he said.
HomeFairyTech charges a 10 per cent fee on completed bookings, according to Okeke.
The underlying model is straightforward: property owners make their inventory and pricing available on the platform. The agents then gain direct access to that inventory instead of having to source it through several other agents.
The potential impact is significant.
If an agent can access a large pool of properties directly, the need for multiple layers between the inventory owner and the customer can be reduced.
That can potentially improve transparency around pricing while allowing property owners to reach a much wider pool of agents.
Turning One Inventory Into Thousands of Potential Customers
For HomeFairyTech, the value of the platform is not simply the number of agents registered.
It is the network effect created when hospitality inventories become accessible to a large community of booking professionals.
“Imagine them being able to get access to 2,000 agents on our platforms. Even if each of the agents has 10 clients apiece, that amounts to 20,000 clients,” Okeke said.
The proposition changes the economics of marketing for hospitality businesses.
Rather than a hotel or shortlet owner constantly spending resources to find individual customers, the property can be exposed to a network of agents. These agents already have relationships with travellers, businesses, and other potential customers, creating a more efficient path to occupancy.
For smaller property owners in particular, that kind of digital distribution can provide access to a market that would otherwise require substantial marketing resources to reach.
From WhatsApp Groups to a Digital Hospitality Marketplace
The evolution of HomeFairyTech also reflects a broader transition taking place across Nigeria’s hospitality industry.
WhatsApp remains an important business tool, but informal communication channels can make it difficult to standardise inventory, verify participants, track commissions, manage payments and maintain consistent information about properties.
A dedicated digital platform can bring these functions together.
HomeFairyTech’s application allows users to register either as agents or property owners and then follow guided prompts to access the platform.
For agents, the proposition is essentially a digital inventory marketplace.
Instead of calling individual hotels or service-apartment operators to determine availability, an agent can use the platform to find listings and book them for clients.
AI Adds Another Layer to the Booking Experience
The platform is also introducing artificial intelligence into its premium offering.
According to Okeke, HomeFairyTech has a pro version that gives agents access to AI-related capabilities and insights into their performance. The features include information intended to help them understand how they can improve their bookings and commissions.
This points to a potentially important direction for hospitality technology.
The next stage of digital booking platforms is unlikely to be limited to listing properties. Data and AI can increasingly help agents understand their performance. They can identify opportunities and make better-informed decisions about how they market available inventory.
For a sector traditionally dependent on relationships and manual communication, the introduction of data-driven tools could gradually change how hospitality businesses manage sales.
Trust Becomes Critical as Hospitality Goes Digital
Technology can make booking easier, but digital platforms also introduce an important question: Who can be trusted?
HomeFairyTech says it has incorporated identity verification into its onboarding process.
Okeke said the company uses Dojah, which he described as a licensed identity-verification company, to validate government identification and facial information submitted by agents and hotels.
The objective is to ensure that users on the platform are identifiable rather than anonymous entities.
“We always confirm what they submit through Dojah API,” Okeke said.
For a digital hospitality marketplace, that layer of verification is important because trust extends beyond whether a room is available.
Customers and agents need confidence that the property exists, that the person offering it is legitimate, and that transactions can be handled securely.
Escrow Designed to Protect Agents and Their Customers
HomeFairyTech’s model also includes an escrow mechanism.
Okeke said the company holds agents’ clients’ money until agreed booking conditions have been met.
The objective, he explained, is to reduce situations in which a customer arrives at a property only to discover that the accommodation does not match what was marketed.
This is a significant issue for a hospitality market increasingly driven by online discovery.
Digital platforms can dramatically increase the speed at which properties are marketed. But that convenience has to be supported by trust, verification and transaction safeguards.
For HomeFairyTech, the combination of verified participants, direct inventory access and escrow is intended to address some of those concerns.
Turning Agents From Intermediaries Into Digital Distribution Partners
Interestingly, the company initially faced resistance from some agents, according to Okeke.
Some agents were accustomed to a system in which several intermediaries could participate in a transaction and earn a share.
HomeFairyTech’s proposition instead attempts to make agents direct participants in a structured digital marketplace.
Okeke said the company had to explain that agents would retain guaranteed commissions while gaining direct access to hospitality inventories.
The company also rewards its top-performing agents, with Okeke saying the parent company provides monthly incentives to its three best-performing agents.
The approach reflects a broader change in the role of travel and booking agents.
Rather than eliminating agents, technology can potentially make them more productive by giving them better access to inventory, transaction tools, customer insights and a wider range of properties.
A Hospitality Platform Built Around B2B
HomeFairyTech’s model is deliberately business-to-business.
Okeke emphasised that the company does not deal directly with end customers in the conventional consumer-booking model. Instead, it focuses on connecting agencies with hospitality businesses.
That distinction is central to its proposition.
Hotels and property owners gain another distribution channel. Agents gain access to inventory. Customers can potentially benefit from more direct booking pathways and reduced layers of markup.
In that sense, HomeFairyTech is positioning technology as the infrastructure connecting different parts of the hospitality value chain.
Digital Hospitality Could Also Create New Work Opportunities
Beyond booking efficiency, Okeke sees another potential benefit from the platform: opening opportunities for young Nigerians to participate in the hospitality economy as booking agents.
He said the company had considered employment and income opportunities from the beginning.
With a smartphone and internet connection, prospective agents can access the platform, learn how to market properties and develop relationships with potential customers.
HomeFairyTech also operates a WhatsApp channel through which agents receive educational content covering areas such as finding clients, engaging customers and closing bookings.
The model does not eliminate the need for hospitality expertise. Rather, it attempts to lower some of the barriers to entering the booking and property-marketing side of the sector.
Why Nigeria’s Hospitality Industry Needs More Digital Connectivity
For Okeke, however, technology alone cannot resolve all the industry’s problems.
He believes the Nigerian hospitality ecosystem needs greater coordination among hotels, property owners, travel agencies and booking agents.
Fortune Okeke
“The hospitality industry in Nigeria needs to be connected. Let’s all make money together,” he said.
That connectivity is becoming increasingly important as Nigerians travel more frequently, demand better accommodation and recreate hospitality and recreational experiences they encounter in other parts of the world.
The growth of shortlet apartments has also introduced new questions around regulation, quality standards, electricity costs and pricing.
Regulation and the Rising Cost of Shortlets
Okeke called for greater structure around the shortlet segment, arguing that authorities should pay closer attention to who is permitted to operate shortlet apartments and how the sector is organised.
He also pointed to electricity costs as a major contributor to operating expenses.
According to him, one of his apartments incurred an electricity bill of ₦50,000 a day, a cost that inevitably influences the price operators charge customers.
The observation highlights a reality that technology platforms cannot independently solve.
Digital platforms can improve how inventory is marketed and transactions are managed, but the underlying economics of hospitality — electricity, property costs, staffing, regulation, maintenance and infrastructure — ultimately influence what customers pay.
A Techpreneur’s Journey From Property Agent to Platform Builder
Okeke: The transition from agent to property operator and ultimately technology entrepreneur
Okeke’s own career helps explain why HomeFairyTech is focused on the relationship between technology and hospitality.
A computer science and industrial mathematics graduate of Covenant University, he grew up around his mother’s spa business before moving into property sales after university.
He began as an agent selling apartments, giving him first-hand experience of how agents operate and the challenges they face.
He later established his own shortlet apartment, initially paying rent and making a margin from bookings. That experience eventually expanded into additional apartments and marketing properties for other owners.
The transition from agent to property operator and ultimately technology entrepreneur gave him exposure to different sides of the hospitality market.
HomeFairyTech emerged from that experience.
Technology Is Becoming the New Hospitality Infrastructure
The evolution of HomeFairyTech reflects a larger transformation underway in Nigeria’s hospitality industry.
Digital technology is changing how properties are discovered, how agents access inventory, and how prices are presented. Equally important, it determines how identities are verified, how payments are protected and how hospitality businesses reach customers.
But perhaps the most important change is cultural.
The traditional hospitality business depended heavily on physical locations, personal relationships and telephone-based networks. Increasingly, the sector is being organised around digital platforms that connect inventory and demand in real time.
For hotels and shortlet operators, this means technology is no longer simply a marketing option.
For booking agents, it can become a productivity tool.
For customers, it can create greater choice and potentially more transparent pricing.
And for entrepreneurs such as Okeke, it offers an opportunity to rebuild parts of the hospitality ecosystem around digital connectivity.
The bigger question for Nigeria’s hospitality industry is therefore no longer whether technology will transform the sector.
It is how quickly hotels, shortlet operators, travel agencies, regulators and technology companies can build a more connected ecosystem around it.
