Born in January 2019, Allbeds is the online hotel content distributor of a business group specialized in the Travel segment with the aim of complementing and diversifying the group's accommodation portfolio, and taking advantage of the existing synergies in the market due to the different mergers and acquisitions . With a total portfolio of 400,000 establishments available in more than 194 countries, the wide range of offerings of different types of accommodation and high availability online for the last minute coupled with highly competitive prices are Allbeds' main argument.
In this interview, Alex Pedret explains to us how they have had to redo their strategy after the pandemic and the new challenges for their company in the coming months. In addition, Alex explains how TravelgateX can help in your different projects thanks to connectivities.
- Has the crisis motivated Allbeds Travel to make internal or external changes?
- Definitely. COVID-19 made us take fast action by rethinking and redesigning our strategy and roadmap. We focused on strengthening the technical assets on which the company pivots, making an important investment on servers infrastructure and redesigning our processing engine, in order to be prepared for a more digitised environment, and ready to handle a higher and more complex demand than before the pandemic.
- What is your growth strategy post-COVID-19 and how is TravelgateX going to help you?
- Our growth strategy post-COVID-19 is already in place. Since weeks or even months ago, we started and resumed conversations looking for more synergies with similar business model partners. We continued increasing our direct inventory and added better tools, so we contribute to offer a product with added-value to a more demanding client, which requires a complete and easy point of sale, with efficient and more automated processes, and all this would not be possible without TravelgateX.
- TravelgateX is an essential technological partner in the tourism industry, especially in the hotel distribution niche. Many Allbeds’ team members already had the chance to work together with TGX in previous projects, and all of them highlighted the value of the system as a connection HUB between clients and providers for its stability and reliability.
- With regard to partners in our platform, what destinations are Interesting for Allbeds Travel?- As a company, we do have ambitious plans to connect with many partners as clients, suppliers or both of them, but when it comes to widen our inventory, the focus will be initially LATAM and US, and Eastern Europe and APAC further on.
- In your personal point of view, what would you say has been the biggest lesson learned from this crisis?- We believe that the lesson is still half written. The confidence in this industry needs to be strengthened, there is a huge transformation and it is just the beginning. Technology is going to be the main value of differentiation in order to fulfill clients’ demands, so we need to be agile and listen carefully to the clients’ needs to keep them as the main actors of this complex but wonderful process. Every company on its niche can contribute with great solutions to the different existing models of distribution, and the new ones that will emerge.
- What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities that may come from this time for your sector? For the travel industry?- Every crisis brings new opportunities, and in this case, with the industry transformation, we can oversee new needs and visions that previously were not that obvious. On the one hand we are working every single day to improve existing products and services, and developing new ones. On the other hand, we are taking this opportunity to strengthen partnerships with suppliers and clients, and bringing them to the next level, so we are ready when demand comes back to normality.
- What is a crazy or out-of-the-box product or technology that you would personally like to see attempted for the travel industry?- Firstly, and with no doubt the Artificial Intelligence, and then the standardization of the technology quality standards. This industry is already using AI, and working on many models of it, but we are convinced that this is nothing compared to what the industry can achieve. It will definitely allow us to generate more customer satisfaction by being more diligent and reactive, and at the same time improve the automation and profitability.
