Booking Group
 | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
|---|---|
| Industry | Car rental |
| Founded 📆 | May 9, 2008 in Riga, Latvia |
| Founders 👔 | Alen Baibekov, Igor Demchakov |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , Riga , |
Area served 🗺️ | Worldwide |
| Products 📟 | economybookings |
| Members | |
Number of employees | 65 (2022) |
| 🌐 Website | bookinggroup |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Booking Group is a privately owned e-commerce company headquartered in Riga, Latvia. The company provides car rental booking services through its website EconomyBookings.com. Booking Group also provided other services like booking of hotel rooms, airline tickets, carsharing and ridesharing.
History
Booking Group was founded in 2008 by two former Dollar Thrifty car rental franchise holders in the Baltic states Alen Baibekov and Igor Demchakov. At first the company was focused on making car rental bookings for Russian customers to South European destinations. Now Booking Group serves customers in 150 countries.[1]
In January 2012, founding members were joined by the software development company Binitex.
In January 2021, Booking Group partnered up with Russian airline company Nordwind Airlines.[2]
In March 2021 the company announced that it adopted IBM Cloud to deploy its workloads including bookings and financial reports.[3]
During the COVID-19 pandemic the number of canceled bookings on EconomyBookings.com increased by 670%, the company turnover at the same time decreased by 80%. At the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, the company received up to 700 booking cancellations per day, while before the pandemic there were an average of 70-100 cancellations per day. The number of cancellations stabilized in May 2020 when it dropped back to 100, and turnover increased by 9.2% up to 41.57 million euros.[4]
Early in 2022, Booking Group conducted a survey of 2,000 Americans together with OnePoll to examine the elements of the perfect road trip. The majority of people said they have taken a road trip because of the journey and not the destination.[5][6]
Products
EconomyBookings.com
EconomyBookings.com is an online broker for car rentals available in 17 languages. Customers search, book and pay for their car rentals on EconomyBookings.com, and the bookings are fulfilled by car rental companies. The website compares deals from 700 car rental companies including Sixt, Hertz, Avis, Dollar, Budget, Enterprise, and mid-tier car rental brands at over 20,000 locations. EconomyBookings.com also cooperates with such metasearch engines as Autorentals, Skyscanner, and Kayak.
EconomyBookings.com Similarweb global traffic rank is 50,784 and 35,907 in the United States. Its main audience is the United States (23.30%), United Kingdom (11.10%), Canada (9.71%), Russia (6.87%), and Germany (6.05%).[7]
Marketplace
In 2021, EconomyBookings.com launched carsharing Marketplace providing private car owners access to its platform, where they can add their own cars, set price and time period when the car is available for rent.
Boombilla
In March 2016, Booking Group launched ridesharing and couch surfing service Boombilla for Russian customers.[8] The service was intended to help travelers find fellow passengers, travel guides, places to eat and stay overnight. The company closed the project in 2017 due to the lack of a sustainable business model.
Technology stack
The EconomyBookings.com frontend infrastructure is built on React, Next.js technology. The mobile applications are written using React Native. The backend represents the system written with .NET Core and leverages AWS Services, ELK Stack, Kubernetes, Superset.
The company provides API as a car rental technology solution for Tinkoff Bank, Nordwind Airlines, S7 Airlines, and OneTwoTrip.
Awards
In 2014, Booking Group was awarded the “Spriditis” prize by Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry as the best new and innovative Latvian enterprise with great export potential.[9]
In 2018, Booking Group was recognized by The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in Central Europe programme as one of the 50 fast growing technology companies in the region and ranked #48 in Total Central Europe Ranking, and #3 in the special section of Big5 companies (technology companies with a yearly turnover of more than 25 million).[10]
In January 2022 EconomyBookings.com received Feefo Platinum Trusted Service Award for delivering highly rated service for three consecutive years.[11]
Sponsorship
In 2012 Booking Group was the official sponsor of the RE Autoclub racing team at the 2012 Dakar Rally and at the 15th Rallye Monte Carlo Historique.
Booking Group is a sponsor of the Latvian cycling team of the same name.
Controversies
Dispute over a Young Renter Fee
In 2018 Booking Group was involved in a dispute over the Young Renter Fee and Underage Driver Insurance. The dispute concerned the customer who booked a car from Dollar Rent A Car on EconomyBookings.com for his daughter. The customer contacted advocacy organization Elliott Advocacy insisting that these were unfair charges. After the advocates examined all the documents, they concluded that the customer was warned about the Young Renter Fee, checked the box that the driver was under 25 when making the booking online, and agreed to the added fee for Underage Driver Insurance at the desk. That means the customer had to dispute all the charges up front, so the case was closed.[12]
References
- ↑ "Latvijas kompānija „Booking Group" desmit gadu laikā kļuvusi par vienu no vadošajām auto nomas rezervēšanas platformām pasaulē". iauto.lv.
- ↑ "EconomyBookings.com Partners with Nordwind Airlines". traveldailynews.com.
- ↑ "Booking Group chooses IBM Cloud to meet customer demand". newsroom.ibm.com.[permanent dead link]
- ↑ "Automašīnu nomas starpnieka 'Booking Group' apgrozījums pērn pieaudzis par 9,2%". delfi.lv.
- ↑ "Americans Prefer Road Trips to the Destination — Especially Spontaneous Ones, Survey Finds". people.com.
- ↑ "Most Americans would only go on a road trip if they didn't have to drive". yahoo.com.
- ↑ "EconomyBookings.com Similarweb global traffic rank". similarweb.com.
- ↑ "Холдинг Booking Group запустил в России сервис Boombilla — конкурента BlaBlaCar". vc.ru.
- ↑ "Booking Group receives "Spriditis" award". leta.lv.
- ↑ "Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe 2018 Report" (PDF). deloitte.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-07-04. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
- ↑ "EconomyBookings.com Receives Feefo Platinum Trusted Service Award 2022". autorentalnews.com.
- ↑ "The young driver fee made him furious. Will Dollar refund it?". elliott.org.
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