Africa-based Tripesa, has launched Roamio an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered marketplace that works to transform inspiration and intent into journeys.
It aims to drive leads to vetted tourism and experience providers across the continent. The platform is Tripesa’s first product and it will operate as a separate entity.
Roamio is “optimized for intent, not inventory” according to Prasanna Veeraswamy, co-founder and CEO of Tripesa, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2025.
He went on to describe it as “the anti-OTA model” with providers receiving qualified, high-intent, structured leads from travelers with concrete plans.
David Gonahasa, co-founder and managing director of Tripesa said it had started out as a shopify for tourism, building websites but that clients needed customers. To solve for that, Tripesa pivoted to an in-house venture studio model to leverage tools such as its data and infrastructure.
“We built Tripesa to solve how small businesses in Africa curate and distribute tourism and experience products. We learned very quickly that while this model helped structure small business operations, it did not solve the most fundamental market access problem,” Gonahasa wrote on LinkedIn.
With Roamio, the company is aiming to eliminate middlemen, provide better prices and increase ancillary bookings while putting more money in the hands of small operators.
“Simply put, we want to solve long-existing problems on both sides of the travel journey involving planning [and] booking complex [and] personalized trips,”
Roamio is not meant to function like an online travel agency or “ideas-only” AI assistant, Veeraswamy said in an email to PhocusWire.
The platform can help travelers explore destinations, shape itineraries and clarify intent using conversational AI. Then, it can convert those interactions into structured travel requests that connect travelers to local experts.
On the flipside, Roamio seeks to make distribution more equitable. It can help service providers such as tour operators, guides and transportation providers to create a profile advertising their expertise. The profile does not require inventory uploads or operational overhead and Veeraswamy said there is no commission structure that “bleeds operators dry.”