Smart Traveling and Fair Hotel Booking with Bidroom
As tech travel trends grow towards personalization, an array of travel apps, and not to mention seamless transportation booking, more and more people are finding travel not only accessible and comfortable but doable. Rideshare apps, roaming wifi, airlines’ bonuses, and global travel communities are staples for any digital nomad or newbie traveler, but when it comes to a hotel booking? Enter Bidroom. Bidroom brings a community-approach to hotel booking and are able to offer the lowest prices on hotels— saving their members up to 25 percent— through their membership model. Plus hoteliers love partnering with them.
Tell us more about Bidroom’s and your team’s mission.
Michael Ros, Co-Founder and COO of Bidroom: Hello! You have your Netflix for shows. So Bidroom is like Netflix for hotel bookings. We are making online hotel booking a win-win for travelers and hoteliers by using a membership model. Why would you need that? Because it makes travel smarter. You become a smarter traveler when you receive up to 25 percent lower hotel rates guaranteed from Bidroom. If you’re a hotelier with your property among the +120,000 hotels on the platform, then it's smart of you as you don’t lose profit on booking commissions. Bidroom is a radically different model. You can call it a fair hotel booking platform that gives back to the industry. You book, you help.
Take us to the beginning. How did Bidrooms start? And how much has changed to today?
Once I worked for an Online Travel Agency that was selling city breaks in direct cooperation with hotels.Through at least a thousand conversations, I learned that hotels were losing a big chunk of annual revenue to booking commissions set by big online hotel booking platforms.
It was at the time when media were discovering the subscription market, with services from the likes of Slack, Salesforce, Netflix, and Spotify. My business instinct led me to discover the potential for launching a subscription-based solution that would free hotels from commission.
Bidroom launched as a tiny travel startup in 2014. Now it’s a growing company with a staff of 85 amazing professionals, four offices, huge number of hotels that includes large hotel chains and other key partners such as Visa and Avis. Back then, I was thinking about how to cover the Netherlands. Now we’re making inroads into Asia!
What are some key takeaways for developing a digital product?
Know your market - a journey towards a solution starts with a clear problem.
You cannot “disrupt” if people don’t benefit from it. It was essential for Bidroom to spend months networking with potential prospects to learn if they would switch to a subscription hotel platform from what they were used to.
Balance is also needed in the value that you offer to your buyers and sellers. In our case, travelers enjoy guaranteed best hotel prices and hoteliers avoid commission-losses. Both sides found these benefits attractive, so they warmly welcomed Bidroom as a new platform.
Usually, facts alone don’t win people over. You need emotions too. We set out to introduce a fair alternative to old-stone booking platforms that became too greedy and aggressive for many of their clients. This was a breath of fresh air to many frequent travellers who now believe in our fair-play ethics and better value hotel prices with Bidroom. They are our partners in change.
Tell us about Bidroom’s travel community. And how that sets you apart for trip-making.
We’re a friendly bunch that feels the need to travel often. Our users are frequent travellers who book hotels several times a year - millennials, business people, and deal-hunters. They love the comforts of a hotel and respect hoteliers. That’s why they use Bidroom. It is good for their pocket and supports the hospitality industry.
What would you say is the future for the hospitality industry? For travelers?
Both sides are increasingly aware of “travel experiences” which still aren’t offered in that many places. There’s no better way to experience the culture with locals. I expect that hotels will increasingly become a connection point for local guides, tours, and attractions to enrich their own offering beyond accommodation. Hotels that position themselves as a gateway to authentic local experiences will attract more guests, especially those who are more culture conscious.
In the age of influencers, travel storytelling is more important than ever. It sets the mood of a place - be it a hotel or a destination.
Any tips for travelers starting out?
I never found myself to be shy, but it seems that it is holding a lot of people back from travel exploration. The best memories of travel come from other people's kindness towards us. So it’s often important to push yourself to say ‘hello’ and chat, regardless of how foreign we feel. Find out one interesting fact for each stranger that you meet. In time, your curiosity will make you excited about your encounters and you'll discover many more secrets of this world. You just need one good question to start off. Learn from travel vlogs on YouTube.
We set out to introduce a fair alternative to old-stone booking platforms
Any popular Bidroom locations/cities we need to visit?
Our blog should keep you entertained with inspiring ideas for a while. If you're outside of Europe, please do visit. If you're a European, then get to know the continent better! It's a welcoming place with very varied landscapes, cultures and communities. After exchanging thoughts with our team, here are some off-the-radar gems that we'd recommend spending a weekend at:
Krakow, Poland
Bergen, Norway
Lyon, France
Copenhagen, Denmark
Gdansk, Poland
Thessaloniki, Greece
Delft, The Netherlands
Cinque Terre, Italy
What’s on the horizon for Bidroom?
In 2-3 years, we should have over 300.000 hotels on our platform, a team of around 200 people, 2-3 new offices, and a member base of over 1 million.
Ready to travel and relax with Bidrooms? Use promo code "CroissantFree" from now till March 1, 2020, and get 1 free year of Bidroom membership. Click here to get started.