Bidroom, a growing online travel community, has announced a €15 million capital investment in the company, which will be used to accelerate growth.

 

The capital injection will be used for the accelerated international roll-out and the investment follows two months after the new management board took office.

 

Bidroom is an initiative designed by hoteliers for hoteliers and started in 2014. The company is an alternative to high-commission platforms and one that brings more business freedom to the hospitality industry, the company said. 

 

In September, the company entered a new phase with an expansion of the board. This new board announced new strategic plans containing product improvement, concept development and solid growth of the Bidroom community. 

 

Bidroom CEO Bas Tolmeijer said the company's workforce will expand to 200 employees within the next year after the company moves into a new, hypermodern office in Kraków in April 2019. 

 

He says that right now, the focus is on the recruitment of IT specialists, marketeers and customer service employees. 

 

The capital injection will also be used to renew the business model, to develop smart technology and to expand availability by partnering with more large chain hotels. Tolmeijer adds that investments are made in sustainable cooperation with various worldwide partners such as Visa, which recently formed an exclusive partnership with Bidroom. The new shareholders are mainly so-called family offices that have faith in the new concept.

                                                                                                                                             

Bidroom is working behind the scenes to finalise the new growth strategy and launch of consumer campaigns. 

 

According to Francesco Monaco, CCO of Bidroom, the special collaboration with Visa is aimed at enabling all their European cardholders to get to know the benefits of booking via Bidroom. 

 

“Our research has shown that there is a particular need for city trips, whereby people often opt for hotels in the higher segment. With this in mind, Bidroom has decided to pay the activation costs for the next 10,000 hotels that register”, says Monaco. 

 

The company also indicated that it will open new offices and expand its teams in the short term, in order to be able to optimise the services to the hotels. The company already operates in the United Arab Emirates.

 

Bidroom is an online travel community and a hotel booking platform with +120,000 hotels in 128 countries. The concept differs from online travel agencies (OTAs) because it does not charge commission to the hotels. Bidroom works with an annual membership model, whereby hotels only pay the contribution after proven success. This substantial saving is shared with the traveller who will subsequently be paying a guaranteed best price. Bidroom is demonstrably cheaper than all known OTAs. The result is a margin improvement for the hotelier.

 

Bidroom is the world’s first membership-based hotel booking platform, with offices in Amsterdam, Krakow, Istanbul and Paris.  - TradeArabia News Service