Interview: Adam Rotfeld, CEO at Roomerang
Adam is an entrepreneur who after working 7 years running the technology department of the Utravel group (the largest independent consortium of travel professionals in Israel), has left it to take the plunge and create his start-up Roomerang.
Roomerang was founded in 2017, and is a unique hotel booking platform that focuses on finding the most profitable deals (the biggest gaps between B2B brand to OTAS), while using ML and AI technology.
In this interview he tells us about her experience working with TravelgateX, the value added for her company as a gateway to travel, helping her connect with many of the best companies in the travel industry, and exploring new challenges by increasing collaboration with the marketplace over the past two years.
- What are some of the biggest challenges for your sector right now?
- I think the biggest challenge now is for travel companies to provide the best service to their clients, after Covid, the demand for travel is huge, the industry was not prepared to the volumes that we see now, a lot of delayed and canceled flights, short of employees etc. hope it will be much better in 2023.
- What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities for the travel industry in 2022?
- I think there are a lot of great startups developing solutions that older companies should adopt and integrate to keep up the innovation of their product. We can see new launches of products all the time in all fields related to travel, for example we are integrated now with a company that developed a unique CUG solution through Instagram influencers.
- What is a crazy or out-of-the-box product or technology that you would personally like to ?
- I think centralizing all the dashboards we have into one, that controls everything, would be a dream right now.
- What is your favourite thing about working in hospitality/Travel/Tourism?
- I really like the colleagues we have in the travel industry, and getting together in some of the worldwide conventions is always great. We usually have a lot of new ideas after meeting with key persons in the industry.
What does TravelgateX add value to your business?
- TravelgateX added value for us is actually exactly as it sounds, it is a travel gate, helps us connect with many of the greatest companies in the travel industry, always helping us explore what we can do next, and I am happy we have grown our cooperation a lot in the last 2 years.
- What suggestions/challenges would you give to the TeamX?
I think TravelgateX should focus on the new agreement and try to get everyone to sign it, this will help all the companies to connect in a very transparent way.
- Can you talk more about solutions you think will be most impactful in the next 12 to 18 months as travel begins to recover?
I think there are a lot of solutions, from the integration step to profitability improvements, that will be a must for companies that want to grow the business. As we have seen from our experience, some of the technologies we have adopted helped us take Roomerang to the next level this year. We know we can't develop everything in house, so we enjoyed integrating some new solutions that were matching to our platform.
- What are the plans for 2023? Looking ahead to the next year, what are your top two or three priorities?
- First one will be improving our solution all the time with new technologies, we think it was the difference this year for us, and we want to keep that in 2023. Second thing will be the integration with hotels and clients that we always put in priority for growth.
- What advice do you have for young people just entering the travel technology space?
I think the options for starting a business in the travel tech space are huge, there is room for many solutions, if it is a good product then it will have great results in a short period of time compared to other industries.