Technology: Booking tools

A booking platform that acts as a virtual TMC... Travelperk is among a new breed of businesses shaking up the market, writes Linda Fox

Fresh from a $21million round of funding, Travelperk is one of a new breed of startups looking to fix corporate travel.

The Barcelona-based business, which started life wanting to reward business travellers who save money on their trips, is now addressing the entire booking and management of business travel via its evolving platform.

According to the startup’s Vice President for Marketing, Gidi Pridor, customers liked the idea of incentivisation but felt the problem was much more profound.

He says that the majority of small and medium-sized companies either do not use a TMC, or have an agency they dislike. “[Travel] is practically unmanaged so the second biggest expenditure in a company is left in a blindspot,” he says.

This will come as no surprise to existing players in the corporate travel market so how does Travelperk think it can successfully address the issues? Pridor says the answer is offering a travel booking and management platform that combines inventory from both leisure and corporate sectors with a great ‘consumergrade’ user-experience and backed up by 24/7 support using various channels. In addition to those points, the platform is free to use. Travelperk makes its money through commission from travel suppliers, although there is also a premium offering which Pridor says is used by about 30% of customers. He acknowledges there are a lot of companies addressing business travel right now, from new entrants and niche startups such as Travelperk and Rocketrip to existing players such as Concur, travel management companies with their own technology and even GDS companies going direct to corporates.

But, he says: “The market is huge and being created right now. Two years from now the question won’t be if you’re using a travel platform, it will be which one.”

Pridor says that the advantage Travelperk has over existing players is in its ability to be agile. He predicts TMCS will become technology-first companies and the market will end up being a mix of travel and expense companies, startups and a handful of TMCS that change their core focus.

Travelperk must be doing something right. It claims revenue growth of 1,200% year-onyear. The company’s plan is to continue doing what it’s doing now in terms of speeding up development and scaling the business. Expansion into up to five new European countries is also on the cards by the end of 2019. Pridor sums up the investor appetite for corporate travel startups by saying that it’s the “biggest unsolved market”, with technology having been ‘rewired’ in dozens of other markets but not this particular one. “It’s by far the biggest market that has managed to stay so behind when the pain is so great. The vast majority of companies are not satisfied with how they book travel. That pain calculates into huge opportunity. It shows this market is ready for disruption,” he says. Investors certainly seem to think so. Rocketrip has announced its own $15million round of funding and

others circling the corporate travel world such as Lola and Upside have also announced large funding rounds in recent months.