Astrid Kastberg, General Manager at Yalago, shares how TravelgateX's technology is supporting the brands’ remarkable growth

Yalago, part of the Emirates Group, is one of the world’s fastest-growing leisure bed banks. Since its inception in 2017, the company has built a strong reputation for its market-leading rates. With an ambitious annual growth target of over 50% in room nights, the company aims to expand its product portfolio and enhance technological efficiency to cater to its global source markets. In this interview, we speak with Astrid Kastberg, General Manager of Yalago, about how collaborating with TravelgateX has supported in tackling challenges and achieving outstanding results in their industry.

 What are the main challenges you face in your business?

Astrid Kastberg: Something we see as an opportunity, rather than a challenge, is our ambitious growth target of over 50% room nights YoY. To continuously accomplish this, we focus on driving source market expansion and deepening our product portfolio to cater to these source markets. We are also very conscious of how quickly technology is advancing, as well as how important it is for us to have high performing and efficient systems to sell our product. That is why investment into technology stays at the top of our priority list. 

What made you decide to use our products or services?

Astrid Kastberg: Being a wholesaler, we are dependent on reliable, high performing, efficient and up-to-date systems. This is the criteria we focus on when selecting our distribution platform partners. Also, TravelgateX provides one of the industry’s widest distribution and supply networks, providing us with speed to market, which is key.

What are the products or services you use at TravelgateX?

Astrid Kastberg: It is easy to set up new clients via TGX, the ‘Stats’ pages are particularly helpful to identify issues and the ability to download the logs it makes investigating them easier. The fact that you can also create custom e-mail alerting is very useful to help raise issues sooner.

How did you find our company, and why did you decide to work with us?

Astrid Kastberg: TravelgateX is a well-known company within the industry, with a great reputation. The platform is also very accessible and easy to use, which was one of our main selection criteria.

How did our solutions help you address the specific challenges you were facing?

Astrid Kastberg: TravelgateX has been instrumental in facilitating the smooth onboarding process for many of our new customers and gaining wide distribution worldwide.

What have been the results and achievements you have gained through our collaboration?

Astrid Kastberg: One of our goals for the next few years is to continue expanding the type of customers we cater to through a simplified onboarding process. The technology support provided through our collaboration with TravelgateX has so far, supported us in facilitating this. Additionally, we have been successful in achieving growth targets of 50% YoY, which is a result of the technological capabilities provided through our partners.

Advice and recommendations for other professionals in your industry.

Astrid Kastberg: TravelgateX has one of the widest connectivity networks within accommodation distribution. As such, it is key for both buyers and sellers when it comes to gaining speed to market and effectiveness in reach and expansion. It is a unique ecosystem to be a part of.

With these inspiring words from Astrid Kastberg, General Manager of Yalago, we understand the value that collaborating with TravelgateX has brought to their company and as part of their remarkable growth in the competitive wholesale accommodation market.”