Hotels.ng, a hotel booking site for Nigeria, is adding flights to its site as part of its attempts to diversify its offering and broaden its appeal to an international, inbound audience.

The flight channel is powered by Travelstart, the South African-based online travel agency which operates across the African continent. Travelstart sources its flights from Amadeus and also from Travelfusion, the UK-based content aggregator majority-owned by China’s Ctrip.

With more than 8,000 hotels in 320 Nigerian cities on its site, hotels.ng is hoping that adding flight bookings will reposition it as “a platform for discovering great locations across Nigeria and opening the country’s best spots to the world.”

Last year it introduced a microsite, spots.ng, which highlights more than 4000 destinations and attractions across the country as part of its aim to “showcase Nigeria to the world”.

Hotels.ng picked up $1.2 million in funding in May 2015

Jumia Travel, the pan-African hotel booking site formerly known as Jovago, also added flights to its core accommodation offering recently.

Two similar moves by similar sites in the same region maybe more of a co-incidence than a trend. But as the established online travel markets mature and growth slows, or at least consolidates around the established brands, Africa could allow specialist local operators to get a foothold before the inevitable arrival of the big players.

Related reading:

Travelstart captures $40 million round, plots African expansion (Feb 16)
Travelfusion investment gives Ctrip global tech presence (Jan 15)