Four months after Serko announced a plan to integrate content from Booking.com for Business into its Zeno travel booking tool, former Expedia Group and Langham Hotels travel technology executive Jonathan Starkings has been tabbed to lead the partnership for Serko.
Starkings will head a multi-functional team at Serko tasked with carrying out the initiative to offer Booking.com content within Zeno. The move is a bid to expand the flight and hotel content available through Zeno, which is offered mainly to small and midsize enterprises through reseller and white-label agreements with travel management companies. While the majority of those TMC partners are headquartered in Serko's home base of Australia and New Zealand, the company has made strides to expand its global footprint in Europe, the U.S. and Canada.
Serko also hopes the agreement with Booking.com will further Zeno's reach into the non-managed sector. Under terms of the partnership, Booking.com will promote Zeno to its own users, many of which aren't serviced by a traditional TMC—enabling Serko to reach a new audience to which its TMC-based model hadn't previously offered access.
"There's a natural delineation between customers that need the kind of support a TMC offers and those that are booking without one, and Booking has been very successful serving that segment," Starkings said. "So they're adding more into the top of the hopper in terms of demand, and we need to similarly ramp up our ability to execute on that opportunity."
To help Serko scale up its offering, Booking Holdings—the parent company of Booking.com—in October made an equity investment of NZ$17.5 million (US$11 million) into Serko in exchange for a nearly 5 percent stake in the company.
The rollout of Booking.com content through Zeno was planned to take place over the coming months, but the recent shockwaves from the global Covid-19 pandemic could compel changes to the original timeline, according to Starkings.
"We always planned a phased rollout process … but we're reviewing everything and will be very sensitive to travel restrictions put into place and the ability of people to make bookings before we push this out in a big way," Starkings said.
"We're also thinking about impact this crisis could have on SMEs in terms of what will be important to them coming out the other side," Starkings added. "Currently, its often difficult for them to access traveler tracking and duty of care info … so we're thinking about how we can bring some improved capabilities to SMEs around those areas."