One of the largest domestic business tourism services, Smartway, bought the stake of the Russian developer of IT solutions for the hotel business and hotel reservation software Bnovo. The cost of the transaction has not been disclosed, but extracts from the tourist market suggest that we are talking about an amount of one billion rubles.
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Kommersant sources also talk about a possible purchase by Smartway, in addition to Bnovo’s b2b service, of some b2c hotel reservation service to expand its presence in the market.
Smartway confirms that the company continues to monitor the assets and is behind the scenes exploring the options available for its acquisition this year. And Bnovo, according to Maxim Yaremko, general director of the Smartway service, is necessary for “the development of the b2b tourism ecosystem.”
Bnovo founder Valentin Miklyaev, who will step down as CEO after the conclusion of the deal, believes that his company “needs the reinforcement of a powerful player to occupy a leading position in the large customer segment.”
He also maintains that having in-house IT solutions and a reliable operator simplifies the three-way relationship between hotel, agency and client, which in turn facilitates personalized pricing.
Since 2012, Bnovo, a hotel management automation service (including reservation processes), has built a base of 16,000 accommodation establishments and has become the second largest market for IT solutions in the field of business tourism (share market share of 20% compared to 70%). Travelline, according to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia) and achieved annual revenues of 322.9 million rubles (in 2023, 72.2% more than in 2022).
The company’s net profit during this period increased to 204.5 million rubles (plus 62.2%) due to 14 million reservations made through the system per year (the commission for each transaction is 1 -2% for both parties of the transaction: accommodation facilities and client).
The Smartway business travel organization service appeared on the market later, in 2016, and in 2023 it reached annual revenue of 45 billion rubles. Since 2018, it is controlled by 1C Corporation (owns a 51% stake in Smartway LLC). The founder of the company, Maxim Yaremko, owns 44.1%.
Over the past three years, Smartway Group has also included the aggregator A&A Business Travel (“Zabronui.ru”) and the MICE agencies Travelmart and MICE ATH.
Author:
Ekaterina Alipova
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
