Q)           How was 2016 for Travellanda? Have you seen an increase in the number of travel agencies and tour operators using your online hotel booking services?

2016 has been another fantastic year. We had 30% increase in the number of travel agencies, B2B and OTAs using our system, and we had 55.8% growth in 2016 with a total turnover of US$64 million. The interesting fact is that we sold nearly as much in the last 12 months than we sold in the first six years of our business combined. This is an incredible achievement and we are so proud of our staff and loyal partners. Our XML feed was in high demand from key major global and regional OTAs and large B2B systems. Asia Pacific and Middle East had massive growth.

Q)           Why should the travel trade use your B2B online booking system? What are its key benefits?

At Travellanda we believe that booking hotel rooms must be an automated, easy and a straightforward process, but with a team of people behind acting in real time to help our customers.

We believe that online business is more than technology and the human being is more than ever at the centre. Making the work and life of our partners easier is at the core of our values. We managed to master the technology part so the past 12 months we have put an incredible focus to become a real customer-centric company and this is really one the key benefits of working with us.

Q)           How strong is your collection of hotels now, and which sectors/regions are seeing the strongest growth?

Today we offer over 200,000 hotels in 200 countries – so really any destination in any country – but Europe and USA remain our strongest markets. Since we opened an office in Bangkok we focused a lot in the Asia Pacific region having the fastest growth as a destination for the past three years in a row specially since we provide hotels to large OTAs and B2B in China.

In 2017 we will add via our extranet an incredible number of hotels particularly in Asia and Latin America, this will allow us to offer more hotels, better rates, extra allocation and diverse room and meal types. As well we secured two major strong partnerships with large hotel distributors.

Q)           Travellanda recently appointed its first GSA is Myanmar. Why Myanmar, and are you planning to enter any other new Asian markets in the near future?

Travellanda is a truly global company and Myanmar economy is opening so it’s a natural interest. In 2016 we launched a fund for either start-up companies or established tour operators willing to make a transition to the online travel business. We were frustrated to see so much talent around the world but with limited access or knowledge of technology.

After assessing over 100 applications we partnered with a local company called Maing Fong Travels giving them access to our technology and online expertise. Since they had great success and high growth. We work actively with 12 key Asian countries but in 2017 we will open new markets such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with GSAs.

Q)           What further activities or developments can we expect from Travellanda in 2017?

We will recruit over 10 talents to support our growth and development. Our team will be exhibiting in eight trade shows all over the world and our sales team will go to 30 different countries. We are launching our brand new website in a few weeks and we will repeat our Travellanda Fund this year.

We will have a live chat to support even more our partners and have a dedicated team to reconfirm hotels just before the check in to offer best experience. We will as will bring awareness to some charities and get more involved as this is as well among the core values of Travellanda.