Sydney based startup Booking Boss announced they have secured a partnership deal with online travel giant Expedia. The partnership will help connect tour operators and trade distributors in a more efficient way. This is a great milestone for the Aussie startup and has proved their commitment to global expansion.
Expedia’s deal with Booking Boss gives the company incredible global exposure to localised sites in 32 different companies. CEO of the startup Renee Welsh says that the Booking Boss system “represents a very new category of technology to the travel industry, and one that is helping large distributors such as Expedia, to innovate, capitalise, grow and improve efficiencies in major sectors of their business.”
The partnership reveals Expedia’s expanse into the traveltech industry and its ramp up of global tour offerings. In July last year Expedia and Tourism Australia joined forces to promote tourism in Australia and since then Expedia has been bringing international visitors to Aussie shores through their connection with 400 airlines and over 250,000 accommodation options.
Booking Boss was launched by Renee Welsh (CEO) and Andy Welsh (CTO) in April 2012 and has since revolutionised the tourism market through tour, activity and attraction management systems (TAA). The startup makes it easy for people to manage their business via one complete software solution. Booking Boss created a complete web-based business management software solution targeted towards the TAA sector.
”Our system lets businesses bring all the various operations required to book tours, activities and attractions into one place. It consolidates several systems: POS, ticketing, online checkout, reporting etc. so businesses can manage their operations more efficiently. It will also reduce administration costs especially in terms of time whilst giving you the opportunity to increase bookings and generate additional revenue,” explained Welsh.
Last year Booking Boss raised $2 million in a Series A round, which was used to solidify their position in the Australian market and push expansion into Europe. The round was led by Sydney investors Michael and Daniel Dempsey, founders of ecommerce company Ezidebit, with Seattle-based venture capital firm Acequia Capital and Scott Blume, former CEO of Wotif, also investing.
The funding round helped them to work on their business model to disrupt the labour intensive travel activities industry. Welsh believes that the popularity of subscription and cloud-based software has not been lost of the travel industry and incentivises companies to look outside their local markets.
“Low set-up costs, low monthly fees and immediate access to updates are all powerful incentives for European operators to look beyond their local market for the best solution; in turn that makes it much easier for a company like Booking Boss to appeal to geographically remote customers,” says Welsh.
Through the Booking Boss SaaS-based solution businesses like Expedia can access real time inventory and availability. This means that the consumer has instant confirmation that eliminates vouchers and the validation of tickets.
“These two way connections streamline administration for both the operator and the distribution channel. They allow instant confirmation, which is a much better customer experience and as a result of this, operators and distribution channels see an increase in bookings as the customer expectations are met,” says Welsh.
Expedia’s online portfolio includes some of the biggest players in the online travel sector such as hotels.com, Wotif Group and Carrentals.com. The partnership with Booking Boss was announced at the Expedia Partnership Conference in Las Vegas on December 9 last year.
Image: Renee Welsh and Andy Welsh. Source: Supplied
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