BookingAgora: Turkish B2B giant eyes global expansion with TravelgateX partnership

BookingAgora, founded in 2016, has emerged as one of the leading B2B players in the Turkish market. Its product portfolio encompasses hotels, flights, car rental, transfers and tours. Initially locally focused, the company is now looking to go global with reliable distribution partners. In this interview, Kadri Ciga, Co-founder of BookingAgora, shares the evolution of the business, highlighting the key importance of technology and customer support in meeting the challenges of the global market.

- Tell us a little about. How did the business start, and how has it evolved over the years?
- BookingAgora has been founded in 2016. It's now one of the top b2b players in Turkey and nearby geography. Our product range covers hotels, flight tickets, car hire, transfers and escorted tours. The company has so far been more local and concentrated on more retail segments. However, at this
point we know that we need to globalize, and thus we need reliable and fast distribution partners like TravelgateX.

- Can you describe the importance of two key factors to Booking Agora development:
- The first one would be definitely technology. In this era where travel technology is so advanced, it is very difficult to survive if you are technologically behind. So from the moment BookingAgora was active, even before that we have been heavily investing on technology to cope with the market
demands and competition in this field. The second one would be the customer support. In the end, whether your customer is a travel agency or
the end user, travel is all about service. Therefore, we consider customer support as one of our top priorities.
 
- How long has Booking Agora been a partner of TravelgateX? What did you know of us
beforehand?
-  It has been around 2 years now. So far, Booking Agora has been connected to TravelgateX only as a buyer. Now we are also launching the partnership as a Seller. We know TravelgateX is one of the major hubs that connects travel buyers and sellers in one easy common platform and helps each part to
grow the business network rapidly.

- What led you to move to TravelgateX? What are the main factors that influenced your decision?
-  It's the strong network that TGX has, plus the reputation and ease/speed of the connection. Among the others, we see, TravelgateX offers the fastest, the most cost-effective solution along with a wide range of networking opportunities. It also has a good reputation and is very well known in the
industry.

- How easy was it to integrate the TravelgateX API - and how long did it take?
- Our tech team confirmed the whole process including testing did not take more than a month.

- What are the benefits of using the TravelgateX API?
- It's very easy to set up new clients + sellers via your API. I also find the stats very useful. It offers analytical data to optimize our connections, while tools like traffic optimizer helped us to do the optimization effectively. 

- How does working with TravelgateX and using the API help you achieve your business goals?
- TravelgateX helped us get connected to many valuable suppliers in a short time. In the same way, we also expect BookingAgora will get connected to interested buyers rapidly and through a simplified onboarding process to be able to distribute our product.
 
- You partner with many other tech companies – what makes TravelgateX different?

- One thing I noticed is TravelgateX is very responsive in all subjects, commercial, technical anything. Second difference is the speed and simplicity. Everything is so simple and quick!

- You are now part of the Buyers/Sellers, what benefits has this brought to you?
- Our main goal for the near future is to expand the clientele that we serve through a simple onboarding process. The technology support provided via TravelgateX is going to help us achieve this.
 
-  Lastly – how would you describe TravelgateX in three single words?
 - Wide network, speed, and effectiveness. Let me add one more ‘simplicity’.