CEO Joy Martins on why DETTY is changing travel in Africa

Joy Martins didn’t set out to build a travel empire. But after years of navigating the frustrating gaps in Africa’s tourism infrastructure, the first-generation Nigerian knew something had to change. As CEO of DETTY, she’s created a travel tech platform that’s tackling the financial and connectivity barriers that have long kept Africa off many travelers’ radar. Through digital banking, eSIM technology, and AI-powered planning tools, DETTY is positioning the continent as a premier destination for global explorers.

What inspired the creation of DETTY, and when did you realize this concept could change travel across Africa?

My mom came over to America pregnant with me. I used to go back home often as a child, but as I grew up and started going when I was older, I had a newfound appreciation for my heritage and where I was from. The issues I was having is that whenever I was going, if I wanted to spend money, I was either using my mother’s account, using her SIM card to make a call, or using some type of cousin’s something so that I can get what I needed done. At the time, it worked because there wasn’t so much going on, but as I used to go more often, I needed to have my own things.

I was blessed to be able to have my dual citizenship, so a lot of those stresses became alleviated. But I started to see the trend of more people, outside travelers, international travelers, wanting to explore Africa. Like when Ghana did the year of return in 2019, and then this last December when we had a crazy influx of people coming into Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa. It’s kind of mimicking that Tulum rise when a lot of people was going into Tulum, and it kind of changed the trajectory for them.

The issue was that it wasn’t as easy for people to spend money on ground like it was for Tulum. Those same issues that I was having, I realized that somebody coming from Atlanta, Georgia, for two weeks isn’t going to be able to have those necessary documents to get those things. So how do we make it easier for them so that when we’re talking about premier destinations, Africa is in the conversation? 

Back then, people used to shy away from putting Africa in that same category because, let’s just be honest, the propaganda around Africa is poverty, and that’s just not true. We have a lot of beautiful landscapes, we have rich people there that are enjoying the landscape, so why don’t we show that side instead of the one penny a day can feed a child narrative. It’s really about changing the trajectory of how people see Africa, and that’s where DETTY was born.

The name DETTY, where did it come from?

Detty December is usually the holiday season from around the end of November till about January, where you just have an influx of travelers that come back home, whether it’s for weddings, whether it’s for just the holidays, and there are concerts going on, festivals, events. It’s just nonstop, a bunch of things going on during that holiday season. It was even created by this artist called Mr. Eazi, who really put it on that platform. We took the December out of it and said, why don’t we turn DETTY into a noun or a verb? I want to get detty, stay detty. It’s really just emasculating that rich culture during that festive season and making it year round.

How does it translate into English?

There technically isn’t a translation. We call it pidgin, and we call it lamba, so it’s kind of like words that can mean multiple things. If you’re saying, Joy, I want to go out with you today, come on, let’s get detty, it doesn’t necessarily mean dirty or anything, but you can kind of create your own meaning around it. The common denominator is around just having fun, being free, being expressive, and enjoying yourself.

What makes DETTY stand apart from other travel or fintech platforms?

At the country level, there are different types of apps that are trying to do the same thing as far as alleviating payments for people and making booking tickets and things like that easier. But we’re not a travel agency. What we’re trying to do is create a lifestyle around Africa. What we’ve noticed is that everybody is just worried about their own country. Nobody’s thinking about Africa as a whole, and I think that’s important because we do have to look at each other as a united front, even though we have 54 countries, which means it’s 54 markets, 54 different types of people. However, we’re all one conglomerate.

DETTY not only brings Africa together, but we’re alleviating payments. We’re bringing eSIM solutions, we’re bringing recommendations in one place, AI integration to help people recommend what they want to do, and then we have the event and lifestyle. It’s our events, our internal events, our event partners, and just creating these moments so that we’re a community.

Talk more about this eSIM thing, because it’s a foreign concept for us here in the States.

An eSIM is an electronic SIM. Essentially, what you do through the app is you pick the country that you want to go to, pick how many days you’re going to be there, and then it ranges by the gigabytes of what you would need. Kind of similar to in the U.S. with how you’re doing your data plan, and then you allot that for that many days.

A lot of the issues is that when you get on ground to a new country, depending on the cell provider, it may work, but for the most part, it doesn’t. This allows people to travel seamlessly, and it helps them build that confidence when they’re traveling. Because if you have to wait till you get back to the hotel to be on Wi-Fi, that may cause some issues for you when you’re outside. This alleviates all of that.

When I download the app, do I need an eSIM through the app or when I get to Africa?

You can get the eSIM within the app. You usually get it when you’re landing or when you’re about to go because you assign it to the day that you’re going to be there, but it won’t activate until you actually put it on your phone. It’s recommended that you get it, like, if you’re traveling in two days, you get it the day before so that by the time you land, you activate it, you’re good to go. But everything is done through the app.

Paint the picture for us. What do we need to know to better prepare?

The minute you decide, hey, I want to go to Nigeria, you can go on DETTY, visit our country guide, and see what the visa requirements are. We plug you with different links to ensure that everything that you need in order to be able to travel is there. Then, once you’re thinking about accommodations, you can go on the app and now look at your accommodations. You can think about itineraries if you want to pick out what restaurants, what activities to do, and let’s say that you may not want to do that yourself, you can employ DETTY AI to create that itinerary for you.

When you’re talking about your wallet, how are you going to pay for these things? You can fund your wallet from your international bank through partners like TapTap Send or Direct Wire or PayPal so that by the time you’re on ground, you have money locally and are able to spend. Same thing with the eSIM. You prepare for that a day before or two, get that activated so that by the time you land, you’re there. It’s really supposed to be an ecosystem of Africa. By the time you think of it, all the way to the time you’re there and you’re leaving, it should help you out throughout the entire time.

Building partnerships across multiple countries had to have been challenging. What obstacles did you encounter?

The biggest obstacle is that people won’t see your vision as big as you see it. This is kind of why the situation is what it is right now, to where we have these nuances where people aren’t able to get easily activated through banking, eSIMs, because countries are just used to their ways. However, we are shifting to a new time, and things have to evolve and change, especially if you want to see better things for the country. It was really just a battle of getting people to understand, see the value of why we need to service this international influx of travelers because at the end of the day, this brings economic value.

Yes, DETTY is about traveling, it is about bringing people together, but this is really a gateway to change how we see Africa, change how Africa even develops itself when it comes to these countries and the economic standpoint, employing more jobs. Because if tourism is high, jobs increase, people will be able to be employed. The bigger picture here is, yes, we want you guys to partner with us for the banking, for the eSIM, however, see the big picture of how this can in turn drive value for the countries. Really just convincing people of the dream.

DETTY’s mission focuses on connecting the world globally. What does that mission mean to you?

That mission literally drives everything that I do. I feel like it’s a duty to us to empower the people that don’t have the same advantages that we have. It’s easy to say, let’s build a bridge, let’s connect people, but what are we actually doing to do that? Because unfortunately, there are people that will not be able to access certain visas, certain passports that will allow them to explore and travel.

So bringing those experiences home, bringing those resources home, connecting people so that in turn, everyone is on the same level. Even though technically there are different hierarchies and things like that, we create the same advantages and opportunities for people. That literally drives everything I do within work, within personal. If it doesn’t have impact, I don’t want to do it.

For more information about DETTY, visit detty.io. The app is available for download on the Apple Store and Google’s Play Store. Follow DETTY on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok @detty.app. Connect with Joy Martins on social media @jooytotheworld.