Stephan Ekbergh

Stephan F. Ekbergh is a Swedish entrepreneur, best known for his pioneering work in the online travel industry. He is the Chief Executive Officer and owner of Travelstart, one of the biggest online travel agencies in South Africa that has a web-presence in 4 countries in Africa. He has a reputation as an innovative mold-breaker who has a track record of challenging established ways of doing business.^{[citation needed]}

Early life and career

Ekbergh is born in Skåne, southern part of Sweden. He started his entrepreneurial career with a small DJ business. After that he worked a little while in the travel industry before he opened up his own agency.

Business exploits

In 1998 he started Sweden’s first online travel agency, the hugely successful “Mr. Jet.com”. In 1999 he founded Travelstart, and established the concept global within a few years. Today he's running TravelLab and operates mostly on the international market. The Scandinavian part of Travelstart was sold 2010. Stephen Ekbergh is currently also an investor and a member of the Advisory board of Everbread, a travel technology start-up.

Ekbergh, his wife Annette and children Alexander (23), Hanna (12), Naomi (11) and Meleah (6) live in Cape Town, South Africa.

Africa's largest online travel agency

Ekbergh has expanded Travelstart to Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania with plans to launch in Nigeria and Turkey by early 2012.

External links

• Traditional Travel Agency Groups Take South Africans For A Ride, Travelstart Survey Reveals
• The 10 minute interview Interview with Michael Bleby
• a startup with lots of potential
• (Afrikaans) Article in business section of Die Burger newspaper
• 'Visionary of the Industry' - Article on Amadeus Dialogen
• Travelstart (Sweden)
• Travelstart (South Africa)
• Travelstart Blog (South Africa)
• Backpacking.se
• Luftgrop.se
• Sistaminuten