Theresa Emerick - Nightsbridge

From a background in Political Science and International Relations, Theresa Emerick worked in research and desk top publishing, before turning her attention to enterprise development. For more than fifteen years, she assisted entrepreneurs to grow their businesses; trained more than 900 entrepreneurship facilitators in South Africa and neighbouring countries and assisted enterprise development organisations with strategic planning. Her work in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, eventually led to a long-term assignment in Nigeria, where she met husband and business partner Neil.

On returning to South Africa, they started Nightsbridge. Nightsbridge specialises in the provision of realtime availability to the online accommodation market. The company provides software that bridges the availability gap between accommodation owners and Internet marketing web sites, travel agents and tour operators.

The nightsbridge service includes a booking software program, or it can interface with existing Property Management Systems to ensure a seamless live, online booking solution. Guests can check availability online and make an immediate booking. This ensures greatly increased exposure for the accommodation providers, since they appear at the top of the realtime availabilty searches on any sites that integrate the information.

Specialising in the non-chain market (B&Bs, Guest Houses, Lodges, Game Farms, Boutique Hotels), nightsbridge can provide availability information for over 1,000 customers.