Skift Take
Gillian Tans is now back in the travel space after investing in the business travel agency and joining its board. Here’s what the Spanish startup intends to get.
Matthew Parsons
Gillian Tans, who up until last month was Booking.com’s chairwoman and its CEO till 2019, has signed up with the board of Spanish corporate travel agency TravelPerk, along with another online travel veteran– Joel Cutler.
The brand-new hires come as part of a $115 million fundraising round, led by new financier General Driver and existing financier Kinnevik. It’s the latest sign of renewed faith in the embattled corporate travel sector.
Tans took control of the management of Booking.com in 2016, turning into one of the highest-paid executives in online travel worldwide. She has personally invested a concealed amount in TravelPerk.
She joins Cutler, General Driver’s managing director. Cutler co-founded Kayak in 2004 with Paul English and Steve Hafner. In 2012 Reservation Holdings, which was then referred to as Priceline.com, got Kayak for $1.8 billion. Cutler previously served on the board of Lola.com, which was likewise co-founded by English.
Friends Reunited
TravelPerk creator Avi Meir previously operated at Booking.com as senior item owner in 2014. Now the business wishes to take advantage of the duo’s experience running big businesses, and TravelPerk’s chief commercial officer desires the business to become as big as Booking.com.
“We do intend to be as big as Reservation in the future … that’s our aspiration,” said Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo. “In the exact same way you have a big winner in the leisure travel market, we believe the same will occur in business travel.”
Taunay-Bucalo stated Tans was “a contractor” and would serve as a consultant, handle hotel relationships and in the future help with the intricacies of handling thousands of employees. “It’s fascinating to have someone on the board who’s seen it, done it,” he said. “It’s a complex industry and we’re at a stage where their contacts and deep understanding of how it works is going to assist us enormously.”
With Booking.com predominantly leisure focused, Taunay-Bucalo said he wasn’t ruling out TravelPerk’s own entry into offering holidays, although it wasn’t a short-term aspiration.
The firm’s focus will now be on providing more sustainable travel options, considering the growing number of electrical cars that will become available in the future. It is likewise doubling down on its new TravelPerk Events tool to assist distributed teams come together in person. “Organization travel is a little changing office. Our clients are using that money to fund meetings, as it’s fundamentally the very same requirement they are attempting to fit,” he added.
The brand-new financing will also be used to support expansion in its target markets, that include the U.S. and Europe. The $115 million series D financial investment takes the overall raised by TravelPerk to $409 million, and it declares it is now valued at $1.3 billion.