Hotelbeds and OYO Form Strategic Distribution Partnership
OYO gains access to Hotelbeds’ 60,000 clients, including tour operators, points redemption schemes and retail travel agents and Hotelbeds’ clients will have access to OYO’s portfolio of more than 18,000 franchised and leased hotels and over 10,000 homes and villas, across ten countries
Hotelbeds, the world’s leading bedbank and OYO Hotels & Homes, the world’s 6th largest hotel chain, today, announced a strategic global distribution partnership. The preferred agreement represents OYO’s first-ever distribution partnership with a bedbank. The partnership provides OYO with access to more than 60,000 travel buying intermediaries around the world that use the Hotelbeds platform, including tour operators, airline websites, points redemption programs, loyalty plans, and MICE operators from more than 140 source markets. As a result of this Hotelbeds’ clients will have access to OYO’s portfolio of more than 18,000 franchised and leased hotels and over 10,000 homes and villas, across ten countries – including India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, the UK, UAE, Indonesia, the Philippines, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and now Japan. Through this partnership, OYO Hotels & Homes, will be able to distribute its hotel rooms via both the wholesale channel, which operates under the ‘Hotelbeds’ name and the retail travel agent channel, which operates under the ‘Bedsonline’ brand – all united under one contract. Mark Redmond, Head of Global Chains at Hotelbeds comments: “OYO Hotels & Homes is one of the most talked about hotel brands currently and is massively shaking up the entire sector, posing a challenge to much bigger incumbents. So, we at Hotelbeds are very pleased to be the first travel distributor given the privilege to work with them. As the largest budget hotel chain, it represents a new offering for our 60,000 plus travel buying clients using our platform, such as travel agents and tour operators – meaning our distribution channel sits perfectly with their needs. Whilst they currently have an impressive 515,000 rooms, they’re set to increase up to 1 million by the end of the year and we’re looking forward to helping them find incremental and higher-yielding bookings for many of those rooms”. Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, OYO Hotels & Homes, stated: “At OYO, our mission is to create a perfect space in every place by ensuring the best possible experience for our guests, and having Hotelbeds as a strategic global partner supports this vision. Hotelbeds distribution channel of B2B travel buyers helps us access new customer segments and geographies. The bedbank company’s cost-efficient distribution channel makes them an ideal partner to achieve our goal.”
A global-first, OYO Hotels brings a unique equilibrium between demand and supply gap of quality living spaces through proprietary technology, efficient operations, staff training, civil transformation, inventory management, revenue management, and customer relationship manager. All these facets come together to improve a hotel’s performance by delivering a quality-assured experience. Subsequently, hoteliers can take advantage of the technology to boost occupancy and deliver enhanced customer experience. In October last year, Hotelbeds announced the consolidation of all of its brands in the wholesale channel —GTA, Tourico Holidays and Hotelbeds— under the name of Hotelbeds, phasing out the Tourico Holidays and GTA brands. With this, Hotelbeds Group and its wholesale brand are now simply known as 'Hotelbeds'. More recently, in early February, Hotelbeds also announced that now 90% of its current 180,000 hotel partners now have access to all of the 60,000 travel buying intermediaries – such as tour operators and travel agents – that use the company’s platform, following the integration of GTA and Tourico Holidays into the company recently. Share this article:

Hotelbeds and OYO Form Strategic Distribution Partnership

Nov 20th, 2018 at 14:45
Jason Soss has been named as global head of strategic partnership for Hotelbeds in the latest in a string of senior management appointments. The newly-created strategic partnerships team forms part of the bedbank giant’s commercial strategy and strategic partnerships arm. The department to be led by Soss focuses on analysing and generating business opportunities, developing and implementing new market initiatives, and managing Hotelbeds largest partnerships, particularly in the airline, loyalty, and online travel agency space. The development follows the consolidation of Hotelbeds, GTA, and Tourico Holidays operations under the Hotelbeds umbrella, with the gradual phasing out the GTA and Tourico Holidays brands. Additionally, Hotelbeds Group and its commercial Bedbank brand, will both now be branded as ‘Hotelbeds,’ to place a bigger emphasis on the company’s sole focus of the bedbank sector. Soss, who has more than 20 years of experience in the travel sector, was previously the president of global business development for Travel Holdings – which formed part of Tourico Holidays and was subsequently acquired by Hotelbeds last year. In his previous role he was responsible for creating and managing the company’s largest partnerships, including American Airlines, Priceline, JetBlue, IHG, Google and others. Soss will take over Hotelbeds’ largest partnerships at a global scale. Reporting to him will be Jon French as director of strategic partnerships for EMEA and Asia Pacific, Bruna Buiatti covering Latin America, Ronald Chan as the head of holidays APAC, and Camilla Riccardi as manager of strategic partnerships in EMEA. Hotelbeds’ commercial strategy and strategic partnerships director Asi Ginio said:“I am pleased to see Jason taking the lead over our hugely important strategic partnerships function – I feel confident that Jason will not only nurture our existing partnerships, but that he will play a crucial role in generating outstanding new ones. “His previous experience makes him the best person to be taking over this role. “Currently, we are in business with a great number of strategic partnerships of which Jason has been involved with, including Google, American Airlines Vacations, Jetblue Getaways, Airmiles, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, Loyalty Travel, and many others. “I am positive that with his experience and dedication, we will continue to grow our number of strategic partnerships.”

Hotelbeds names Jason Soss as strategic partnerships chief

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Accommodations wholesaler Hotelbeds Group is phasing out its Tourico Holidays and GTA brands as it goes forward under a new identity. Since coming under the ownership of private equity firm Cinven and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, the company has gone through something of an acquisition spree picking up two of its biggest rivals in as many years. But as part of a wider brand refresh, Hotelbeds will drop the “Group” from its name and kill off both GTA and Tourico Holidays over the coming months. When the rebrand is complete, the company will use Hotelbeds for most of its business, with Bedsonline used exclusively for traditional retail travel agents. Although it recently sold its destination management division to TUI , it still sources and distributes some ancillary products, such as transfers, excursions, tickets, theme parks, car hire, and other in-destination activities. After the rebrand, it will do this under a product line called Beyond the Bed. Hotelbeds is a business-to-business wholesaler, supplying accommodations to travel agents, tour operators, and airlines across the world. In Europe this type of business is known as a bedbank. It currently has more than 170,000 hotels, 24,000 transfer routes and 18,000 activities on its books. Joan Vilà, executive chairman of Hotelbeds said the changes reflected the renewed focus of the company following the string of recent deals. “This is a really straightforward business now with the three companies that we are putting together and we wanted to reflect what we are,” Vilà told Skift. “Now with this change the bedbank business and the group business will have the same brand, which I think simplifies the whole thing.”
Hotelbeds still has some work to do integrating the acquired brands, both on the technological side as well as with supplier contracts, which Vilà said is a “massive piece of work.”
Having bought two of his biggest rivals, Vilà doesn’t think Hotelbeds needs to do any more deals but will continue to look at the market for opportunities. “We have sufficient scale we don’t need any more acquisitions. We are also now in an integration [phase], which is very intensive but at the same time we always have to look at the market if there are opportunities,” he said. Towards an IPO? Cinven and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board paid $1.3 billion for Hotelbeds in 2016 and at some stage will be looking to cash out. The company is bigger than the one they bought, so they will no doubt be looking for a substantial increase on their initial outlay. Vilà said Hotelbeds had grown in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions, which now account for a third of all business. “From their [the shareholders’] point-of-view we are a perfect business for an IPO because we are global we are in a combination of two segments—data and travel—that are very well considered in the market.”
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Hotelbeds Rebrands to Focus on Accommodations

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Hotelbeds Group , a global bedbank and business-to-business provider of services to the travel industry, has announced today plans for Tourico Holidays to merge with its Bedbank business unit. Commenting on the news, Joan Vilà, Executive Chairman of Hotelbeds Group said: “With the backing of Cinven and CPPIB we are entering the next phase of our development since becoming an independent company back in September. Therefore it gives me great pleasure to announce that Tourico Holidays will join Hotelbeds Group. Tourico Holidays has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and innovation that I have respected for many years. I look forward to working with its experienced leadership team. “The proposed deal will enable us to enhance our footprint, especially in Tourico Holidays’ home market of North America whilst they will benefit from belonging to Hotelbeds Group´s global network. Together we will combine our best in class technology and distribution expertise for the benefit of both our hotel partners and clients. For the time being, both businesses will continue as usual, focusing on our top priority: providing the best possible service to our hotel partners and clients.”
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Hotelbeds Group’s Merger with Tourico Holidays Brings in Innovation and Larger Footprint in India

28/04/2016
· Spain · Hospitality · Cinven , CPP Investment Board
European private equity firm Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (‘CPPIB’) have announced an agreement to acquire, along with management, 100% of the Hotelbeds Group (‘Hotelbeds’ or the ‘Company’), the global provider of travel services based in Spain, from Tui Group for a total enterprise value of €1.165 billion. Hotelbeds is the largest independent business-to-business (‘B2B’) bedbank globally, offering hotel rooms to the travel industry from its inventory of 75,000 hotels in over 180 countries to its customer base across more than 120 source markets. In addition to hotel accommodation, the Company provides transfers, excursions and tours, meetings and events, visa processing outsourcing and cruise handling services. Hotelbeds’ main clients are tour operators, travel agencies, corporate clients and consumers. The Bedbank business, which generates the majority of the Company’s profitability, has demonstrated double digit volume growth in both its hotel portfolio and room nights over the past five years. Headquartered in Palma de Mallorca, the Group was established in 2001 and employs 6,150 people worldwide. Cinven and CPPIB believe Hotelbeds is an attractive investment opportunity on the basis of:
Strong financial performance with double digit total transaction value (“TTV”) growth in the Bedbank business over the last five years;
Strong underlying market growth supported by an expected increase in global hotel bookings, the continued shift from offline to online bookings and bedbanks’ further penetration within their core customer channels;
Hotelbeds’ highly experienced, proven management team, led by Joan Vilà, CEO, with an outstanding track record of driving organic growth in both its hotel supply and customer base;
Market consolidation opportunities in Europe, Middle East, Asia and the Americas given customer demand for wider bedbank portfolios and market fragmentation; potential for further profitability improvement through economies of scale;
Opportunity to improve bedbank distribution via travel agents and tour operators – particularly in emerging economies – via investment in its sales and contracting team, as well as investment in R&D and IT systems to improve customer efficiencies and services. Cinven has a strong track record in the travel technology business, following its successful investment in Amadeus, the leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel industry, which invested more than €1 billion in R&D and doubled EBITDA during Cinven’s ownership, generating a return of 7 times. Commenting on this transaction, Jorge Quemada, Partner at Cinven, said:
“Hotelbeds Group is a strongly performing business with the largest accommodation distribution network within the overall B2B bedbank market offering broad client reach globally. We believe there are considerable growth opportunities through further investment in IT – as we did successfully with another global business based in Spain, Amadeus; growth in Asia and other markets – supported by our Hong Kong-based portfolio team; and market consolidation as the wholesale accommodation market remains highly fragmented.”
“Hotelbeds is run by a highly experienced and skilled management team, led by CEO, Joan Vilà, whom we are looking forward to working with, along with our partner, CPPIB.”
Shane Feeney, Managing Director, Head of Direct Private Equity, CPPIB, said:
“Hotelbeds is a unique opportunity to invest in the leading operator within the hotel accommodation distribution market, an industry which has strong long-term prospects that will support continued growth. Backing a best-in-class management team, with an exceptional track record of organic growth that we will support in driving industry consolidation in the coming years, provides a terrific opportunity for CPPIB.”
“We look forward to working with our long-standing partner Cinven, and Hotelbeds’ strong management team to continue to grow and build further value for the business.”
Chris Good, Senior Principal at Cinven, added:
“Hotelbeds has demonstrated exceptional growth and built an outstanding market position as a result of its market-leading proprietary technology and strong customer and supplier relationships. Its focus on diversifying into new market segments is proving highly successful and generating impressive growth rates in all of its new ventures.”
“This investment perfectly illustrates how the Cinven team has been able to combine its sector and regional team capabilities working across our Business Services and TMT teams, along with our German and Iberian colleagues, to identify and execute this transaction.”
Joan Vilà, CEO of Hotelbeds Group, commented:
“We are excited about Cinven and CPPIB’s investment in Hotelbeds which will enable us to continue improving the quality and range of services we provide to customers as a financially solid, independent and scalable bedbank operator.”
“The Bedbank segment continues to grow fast and with the backing of Cinven and CPPIB we will be well placed to invest more strongly than ever in technology, innovation and distribution. We look forward with anticipation to supporting the growth of our trade partners in this next stage of our development.”
The transaction is subject to customary approval from the relevant regulatory authorities. Advisors on the transaction included: Bain & Co. (commercial); Freshfields (legal); Lazard, Morgan Stanley, HSBC and PwC (M&A); Deloitte (tax); PwC (financial, labour and IT).
 


Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to acquire Spanish hospitality company Hotelbeds Group

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