In June business travel specialist Travel Pro launched its LetzBookit.com platform, which allows users to compare offers for air tickets, hotels and car hire, as well as tickets for international sporting events, and to book them online.
"We wanted to create a Luxembourg platform to offer a complementary service to our business customers (B2B) and to others, whether they are travel agents (B2A) or individuals (B2C)," says CEO Gianni Pietrangelo. "I am a member of the disputes committee of the Luxembourg consumers' union (ULC). People who make a mistake when booking or face flight cancellations have a hard time reaching international online platforms. Our strength is that we have an office with about 30 employees." Two of those staff are assigned to LetzBookit.
28,000 visitors in June
It took a year and a half of work to bring the platform to fruition, and almost €100,000 of investment. "We bought an existing engine and used our travel-related know-how to develop the tools and content," Pietrangelo says.
Travel pro guarantees that it does not make any profit from users booking tickets or partnerships with hotels (1.5 million available) and airlines (1,250) via the platform. "The goal is to be present.” LetzBookit attracted 28,000 visitors in June, a figure that has increased by "10-15% per month" since. "We're more about 'look and see' than 'look and book', but that's okay.” Pietrangelo aims to sell 1,000 tickets by the end of the year.
He promises improvements as time goes on. After a quick test on 30 August, looking for a hotel in Rome between 19 and 24 September for one person, the rates are still better on Booking.com for the time being if you are looking for the cheapest option, regardless of comfort (€148 for five nights in a six-bed dormitory, compared to €940 euros in the cheapest three-star hotel on LetzBookit). For plane tickets, they are close to those of Opodo (€170 for a return ticket on LetzBookit, the same price as Luxair, from 20 to 22 September, compared with €157 on the Opodo platform).
A recovering sector
In any case, this should simplify bookings in a sector hit by the crisis. "Today, we are at 60% of business tourism activity. For leisure, which represents 10% of our activity, we have experienced peaks this summer close to the pre-crisis level,” explains Pietrangelo. After a 95% drop in turnover in 2020 and 80% in 2021, he expects a 40% drop in 2022 compared to 2019, when it "exceeded 40 million euros".
Travel pro is part of SLG and a partner in the global American express GBT network. The company plans to hire two new staff in September, so that by next year it will have 40 employees.
This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.