SaaS Startup Lodgify: VR & AI Are The Future Of Booking Travel Online

How would you describe Lodgify in a few words?

Lodgify is an innovative all-in-one software-as-a-service solution that helps vacation rental owners and property managers to get started and grow their business. Using Lodgify, vacation rental operators can easily create their own mobile-friendly website with a “Book Now” function, accept credit card payments, manage reservations and availabilities efficiently, and instantly synchronize property information with listings on multiple external vacation rental portals.

What inspired you to create the platform? How did it all start?

My mother used to run a small vacation rental business in a ski resort. One day, she asked me whether I could set up a website for her where guests can instantly book her vacation rental. I had some web design experience in the past, but I just didn’t have the time to do it myself.

So before building the website from scratch, I searched online for a site-building software tailored to vacation rentals, which would easily enable users to create a bookable website and manage their reservations – similar to what Shopify is doing for online stores. But I couldn’t find anything – that’s when the idea popped up to create Lodgify.

Let’s talk about the competition: as (private) owners can just present their rental property on sites like Airbnb – why should they opt for their own website?

The key point to make here is that online travel agencies (OTAs) are not competitors of Lodgify. While part of the same industry, the difference between them lies in the concept. Lodgify provides a software solution and is not a travel agent.

OTAs are very powerful stakeholders and there is no denying they can deliver strong booking numbers. In fact, many of our clients have both their own website and external listings on OTAs – it’s a complimentary service. We even provide the technology to integrate with them, so that owners can manage all their reservations from different channels in one place.

However, at the same time, we empower users to increase their share of direct bookings. Creating their own professional website gives owners the opportunity to be completely in control of their business. With online travel agencies, users have to accept the rules and regulations which are set by the company. With Lodgify, the user creates their own rules. They can decide what their cancellation policies are; how and when guests will pay them; plus, every aspect of the website can be fully customized to suit their brand.

As the tourism industry is experiencing a rapid change in consumer behavior, including booking – where do you think we’ll be in five years from now? What innovations can we expect to see?

We believe that there will be a lot of changes in the near future in the way that consumers will book their travel online, especially regarding virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI) and messenger bots. These are all technologies that we are taking into account with our own product roadmap to ensure we stay at the forefront of the industry.

What is the biggest challenge that the company has faced?

When Lodgify began, we were a bootstrapped startup with virtually zero funding – a very challenging undertaking. It was not easy to develop our advanced software with so few resources. Yet amazingly, even with such limited resources, we managed to develop a product we were incredibly proud of. Of course, the product has since advanced and developed as we’ve grown. We’re looking forward to continuing to build these new technologies for lodging businesses.

What’s next for Lodgify?

We have a full product pipeline that means we will continue to invest in technology and hire more developers. Our plan is to make sure that our clients are always directly bookable, no matter which new consumer technologies the future brings us.

If there is one thing you could wish for in improving the European startup ecosystem – what would it be?

I wish there was less bureaucracy, e.g. regarding taxation, immigration and more friendly legislation for digital businesses and the digital consumer. For example, while we are the strongest advocates for privacy, we do not understand why digital consumers would always need to click away from that annoying EU cookie popup. I don’t know how many clicks I’m wasting every day just on closing that popup.

What’s one piece of advice you can give to fellow founders for their startup?

Be passionate about what you’re doing and what your startup is doing. Make sure you have found the noble purpose of your startup that would still motivate you to wake up every day and work long hours – even if things don’t go exactly to plan. Have the ability and stamina to work under a lot of pressure – a lot.

 

++++ Lodgify featured on WIRED’s 100 Hottest Startups in Europe ++++

 

___________

Sharing is caring!