A Travel Gateway to your Country. Selling a destination online.

Country Travel Gateway

what is travel gateway?

Innovations

Other countries in Europe the problems & the opportunities

what weve done in Poland?

COUNTRY TRAVEL GATEWAY

1. One-stop-shop for all travel products in one country:
HOTELS CARS TOURS TRANSPORT EVENTS IDEAS

2. Selling both B2C (online, to everyone) and B2B (to contracted local businesses & foreign travel agents) 3. Designed and developed by local teams 4. Personal approach, promoting local diversity. STAYPOLAND.COM
since 2003 served over 250,000 customers reservation system travel agency software developer Travel Gateway to Poland

INNOVATIONS
One solution to become an online tourism authority for the destination.
User-friendly online interface. Individually-negotiated rates for business customers. Business customers compare OWN negotiated rates (B2B) & PUBLIC rates (B2C). Customization of Discount levels & Payment methods for groups of customers. Loyalty program. Rewards for user-generated hotel descriptions. Absolute Transparency . All customer feedback instantly published online.

Last 3 months: 1262 reviews. 99% of the customers satisfied.

Excellent 804

Very Good 389

Good 55

Fair 8

Bad 6

Very bad 0

Are there similar services in Europe? NOT REALLY.

WHY?
3 CHALLENGES

CHALLENGE 1: ONLINE HOTEL SALES WITH OWN INVENTORY the biggest business dominated by 2 global, volume-driven IDSs

PRICELINE Inc.
booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, kayak.com Q4/2012: 46.2M room nights (37.6% y/y growth)

EXPEDIA Inc.
expedia.com, hotels.com, venere.com, trivago.com Q4/2012: 29.7M room nights (33% y/y growth)

HRS.DE

mid-size

hrs.com, hotels.de, tiscover.com private ownership, does not publish sales data 2011 market share in online hotel reservations: 50.6% in Germany 10-12 % in Austria & Switzerland

SP comment
Sales metrics for Poland not available, possible benchmark: hotel reviews Booking.com: 15-20 times more Poland hotel reviews than on StayPoland.com StayPoland.com: 100% more PL hotel reviews than on HRS.com (despite huge TV campaign in PL)

Being 100% local can make a difference.

CHALLENGE 2:

EUROPE NOT A BRIC COUNTRY

EUROPE

TRAVEL

INVESTORS

open Local hotel res. systems: Closed down:

global

Cautious

Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Paris & London UK & Spain (difficult to innovate & sell more than the global players)

SP comment
Only StayPoland.com sells B2B & B2C + not just Hotels, also Tours & Cars = Competitive Advantage

BRIC countries Big, specific local markets, strong local brands OSTROVOK.RU
Moscow-based hotel res. system only in Russian Investment (2011): 15.6M $ (for 44% equity stake) Out of 200 staff: 25-30% engineers.

CTRIP.COM
Largest travel &hotel consolidator in China since 1999 2011: approximately 22 M room nights

CHALLENGE 3:

PERFECT SOLUTIONS FOR A VARIETY OF SERVICES

1. 2. 3.

BUILD ALL THE SERVICES PERFECTLY FOR ONE COUNTRY USE IN OTHER DESTINATIONS NO DOMINATION, LET LOCAL SERVICES COMPETE

SP comment
The only investment in SP was courtesy of PARP (Polish Agency for Enterprise Development) 100k USD i.e. external funding 150 times lower than Ostrovok.ru Still able to develop comparable IT solutions for several services. In 9 languages.

#3 MOST INNOVATIVE POLISH B2B SYSTEM (PARP competition, 2012) POLAND. MADE PERFECT

COUNTRY TRAVEL GATEWAYS (CTG)

THE CHANCES & UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSALS

THE TOTAL OFFER IN ONE COUNTRY

Global reservation centres offer one product type (e.g. hotels, cars) everywhere. Sometimes, customers need to learn about ALL products in one destination.

LOCAL COLOURS
Using a CTG site: a part of the whole travel experience of visiting a new destination. Customers enjoy local services, more likely to know about them if CTG exists in more countries.

LIFE-STYLE
CTG is not only about incoming travel Attractive for local customers if they are informed about whats new and hot in their country.

B2B
B2C hotel sales very competitive. Satisfactory sales: the same products discounted to a shared network of business partners.

CONCLUSIONS
Excellent local country gateways may be the biggest untapped opportunity in the online travel business. It will work if the concept is perfected and used in several countries. StayPoland.com is constantly improving the concept. We are looking for partners abroad (experts, companies or investors).

More information: Tom Zukal General Director t.zukal@staypoland.com