SPONSOR CON-X 2023: Interview Gaurav Bhatnagar, Co-founder TBO.com

TBO.COM is a global travel distribution platform that connects over 100,000 buyers with more than 1 million suppliers in over 100 countries. In this opportunity, we interviewed its Co-Founder Gaurav Bhatnagar who explains some perspectives for the business during this year, as well as the participation of his company as a sponsor in CON-X 2023. 

- We live in a period of high uncertainty, in which the main challenge for managers is decision-making. At Con-X we will talk about this, but could you tell us about your own case? How do you deal with decision-making in your company?

- We have a few core tenets that we follow for decision-making. Firstly, decisions should happen as lower down the organization as possible. People who have their ears to the ground and who are most impacted by a decision should have the most say. Secondly, decisions should be first and foremost based on data and evidence. In an internet business, it can be risky to take decisions purely on perception or intuition. Finally, we truly believe that a quick wrong decision is better than a long delayed right decision. Indecisiveness is very harmful for organizations. Better to take a wrong decision and then course correct, as against drag your feet to get to a right decision!  

- Tourism distribution is going through a sea change right now. The biggest trend that we see emerging is the renewed focus on b2b distribution. For the past 20 years or so, b2c distribution took centre stage. But as that space has started to saturate, there is a realization that the offline distribution space is actually larger but extremely fragmented. 100s of billions of $ of sales happen via travel agents, tour operators, DMCs etc. Hotels are finding it increasingly hard to service this segment, and hence they are looking for alternate distribution channels. We believe this trend will continue to grow. TBO is completely focused on aggregating this offline demand at a global scale.

- I think we were quite daring as well as adventurous through the pandemic. Early on in the pandemic, TBO took a tough call of making all customer refunds even before receiving the refunds from the suppliers. Likewise, we paid our suppliers before we had managed to collect all the monies from our buyers. These were risky calls, but were also the right things to do. We also decided to largely keep our teams in place and took collective salary cuts. In fact, we went beyond and hired by the dozens at all levels. All of this helped us revive the business post pandemic.

- We remain focused on our core goal of becoming the world’s largest travel distribution platform. We continue to aggregate offline demand across all the five continents while also augmenting our supply base. We are significantly investing in our technology to ensure our supply is available on high throughput, low latency APIs with very low booking failure rates.  

- At TBO, we believe in putting our partners first, no matter the circumstances. During the height of the pandemic, as mentioned above, we made the conscious decision to provide refunds to our customers and ensure timely payments to our suppliers. We're proud to say that we were one of the few companies to take this approach, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to partner satisfaction.

What's more, we were the first major international player to offer hotel confirmation numbers for all bookings, setting us apart with our exceptional service levels. We pride ourselves ongoing above and beyond for our partners.

Over the past couple of years, we've also placed great emphasis on diversifying our supply, allowing us to offer a portfolio of almost 50,000 directly contracted properties worldwide and a total hotel inventory of 1M+. Our unparalleled distribution has helped us foster these strong relationships with our supply partners, allowing us to provide the best possible service.

At TBO, we know that technology and data are the keys to success in the travel industry. That's why we put them at the heart of our business, allowing us to offer the most innovative solutions to our partners and customers. We're proud of what we've accomplished so far, and we're excited for what the future holds.

- Based on our previous years' experience at Con-X, I can gladly mention that the event provided us with a unique chance to connect with existing and potential partners, and we gained valuable business relationships as a result. It was also a great platform to network, share insights, and discuss current challenges and future opportunities to grow within the industry.  We would definitely recommend TravelgateX's events to other companies looking to engage with the travel community and expand their business connections.