· Hotelbids to invest up to Rs 80 Crore
Bengaluru , 18th October 2016
Hotelbids Hospitality Pvt Ltd, subsidiary of US Company Hotelbids launched first of its kind hotel booking app in India where travellers can book hotels according to their pocket size not as per the hotel price. It has large presence in over 2500+ hotels in 69 cities of India.
Hotelbids is an app that targets last-minute hotel bookings and has a very constructive approach towards the hospitality industry. The idea of this app is conceived by Mr. Inder Sharma, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Hotel.com. The idea behind the Hotelbids is that no hotel room should go empty and customers should get the chance to get more than what they hope for. Until now, customers had to go to various travel sites to hunt for the best price for the same room at the same hotel. Plus, no site gives consistent rates.
“We are at present building customer base. So far, we have invested around Rs 3-4 crore mainly on technology and operation for this service. Next year, we plan to invest Rs 70-80 crore in expanding our footprint both in domestic as well as overseas market,” Hotel-Bids president and CEO Inder Sharma said.
At Hotelbids, customers don’t search, the search comes to them. They just set their price and the specifics desired and the rest comes to them. The request of a customer for hotels in a particular city is broadcast to all hotels in the Hotelbids network, which can respond immediately to accept the offer. Customers can then check the specifics of the hotel before making their decision. In this simple and transparent way, both hotels and customers win. It is a two click last minute room booking app.
Inder Sharma who has more than 20 years of experience in Hospitality Industry said,” Customers don’t get what they deserve. Though hundreds of online travel agencies (OTAs) claim the best deals, the difference in price remains just few rupees. Every night approximately 1.7 million rooms go empty globally. This gap created a need for a platform which is both customer-centric (to get the best deal) and hotel-centric (to fill the capacity)”.
Mr. Sharma has founded over 13 companies including Hotel.com. Hotelbids is funded by hospitality professionals from the USA. Hotelbids is now a valued member of AAHOA (Asian American Hotel Owners Association), whose members collectively own approximately 23,000 hotels in US. In India, Hotelbids did a soft launch in July, 2016 and now the app is available at Google Play and App Store and plans to expand to major international markets soon. The company has begun the hotel registration process in United States and will launch in USA in January 2017.
Inder Sharma
Entrepreneur and an environmentalist
Founder – Few of Inder’s ventures (Hotel.com, medibuy, Hotelsupplies.com, UPHILL Fuel Technologies)
IBOS.com- An Incubator in USA developing next generation Technologies & Products.
ZYGOR Energy- (Investor in cutting edge electric Motor & Power generation Technology)
Inder Sharma is a visionary, a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor and an environmentalist seeking practical solutions to everyday problems. Mr. Sharma has founded 15 companies in the last 20 years varying from hospital solutions to energy efficient lighting. After 7 years of a successful career in real estate as a licensed broker, he moved to the internet space in 1996 and founded hotel.com, which was acquired by Expedia in 2001. Next, he founded iBOS, an e-commerce company which developed proprietary software for e-commerce supply chain management platforms. The same year, Mr. Sharma founded hotelsupplies.com which was licensed to Choicebuy.com, operated by Choice Hotels International, USA.
In 1997, Mr. Sharma co-founded Medibuy Inc. an internet company focused on Hospital Supply Chain Management. Medibuy was funded in excess of $100M and Goldman Sachs filed S-1 with a $1.5Billion valuation in 2001. In 2002 Medibuy merged with GHX, a consortium owned by GE Medical, Siemens, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic.
Mr. Sharma founded Uphill Fuel Technology which manufactures a device which reduces 40%-60% emissions in diesel and petrol vehicles. Sharma’s incubator IBOS.com has recently launched, Hotelbids, his latest Application launched in India and will be launching this bidding platform in USA in January 2017. Hotelbids seeks to solve the problem of the hotel gap in which it aims to fill vacant rooms and for the bidder’s price while increasing bottom line of hoteliers.
Inder finished his Bachelor of Science from Kurukshetra University, India and later attended post graduation program in Botany. Sharma also volunteered and has taught entrepreneurial classes at Marshall School of Business at USC, Los Angeles. Mr. Sharma has also been involved in philanthropic projects in India. He is married with two kids and lives in Anaheim, California (USA).
Motto: Stay@YourPrice
Mission: Provide REAL VALUE to Customers, Hotels and stakeholders.
Business Summary: Hotelbids provides mobile and Web platforms for customers to communicate directly, in real-time, with Hotel operators to obtain the best possible rate. This interaction creates a new market for “e-walk-ins” that allows hotel operators to improve occupancy. By providing hotel operators, corporate travel departments and travel agencies a cost effective customer acquisition channel. Hotelbids seeks to introduce greater transparency to the hotel room booking process that will disrupt the hospitality industry while keeping the booking fees lowest.
Industry problem: There are over 5 million hotel rooms globally and every night over 30% rooms go empty. Hotels are paying enormous booking fees to OTAs which ranges from 15% to 30%.
Customer Problem: Consumers want to rent hotel rooms with greater efficiency, transparency and knowledge, to ultimately obtain the lowest price. Customers want to know what rooms are available in real-time, within their geographic vicinity, for the lowest rate that fits within their budget. Customer does not get the best rate always as most of the OTAs have more or less the same rate. To get best rate he has to visit multiple sites.
Hotelbids solution: Hotelbids lets customers negotiate directly with hotel owners and channel partners to get rooms at their price while hotels fill their last minute empty rooms. Best value for hotels is that they pay lowest booking fee in the industry. Customers also can book bulk rooms in advance. Hotelbids is a TRUE hotel and customer centric platform. Hotelbids is just filling the gap.
Target Market: Hotel global market is $180B of which India has $10B+. The initial launch was in India in August, 2016 and the U.S. platform will be launched in January, 2017. Global expansion planned for 2018. India has just 17% online.
Current Customers: In last 6 months of business development efforts, Hotelbids registered 2,500 hotels in 60 cities in India. There are over 500 hotels in the pipeline. Hotelbids also working with travel agents and channel partners who feel strongly about the value proposition offered by Hotelbids. Hotelbids expect 3500 hotels by the year end 2016 in India. Company has started registering hotels in USA. Hotelbids gets average 200 reservation requests daily.
Sales/Marketing Strategy: A multi-tiered awareness and promotional strategy will maximize market penetration and adoption rates. A number of online travel websites and search engine optimization strategies will be deployed to accomplish this plan’s objectives in addition to traditional mediums such as radio, print and TV media. Company is in the process of forming strategic partnerships with hotel management companies and channel partners.
Revenue Model: Hotelbids earns a commission every time a hotel room is booked through the service. Hotelbids revenue model is based on Walmart and Reliance model – high volume at low margins. Booking fee will be lowest in the industry which will make our model more adapted by the hotels.
Competition: Current competitors include brand, merchant, opaque and retail websites such as priceline, findmystay, expedia, Hotels.com, yatra.com, makemytrip and many more. In real sense Hotelbids may not be competing with OTAs as it is just filling the gap by tapping in to last minute empty rooms which are filled by hotels directly at customer’s price.
Competitive Advantage: Hotelbids is hotel and customer centric platform. Customers do not pay what is published, but they pay what they want to. Hotels fill their last minute rooms directly at the lowest booking fee. Hotelbids provides greater transparency and real-time interaction that is optimized for mobile devices. In addition, the management team has significant knowledge and understanding on how the hotel room booking market operates today, and has identified inefficiencies that can be overcome with the Hotelbids service platform.
Strategic partnerships: Recently, Hotelbids formed a strategic partnership with AAHOA (Asian American Hotel owners association) whose 15,000 members own over 24,000 hotels with 1,700,000 rooms which is almost 50% of hotels in USA. This empowers Hotelbids to work with AAHOA closely and build a customer and hotel centric booking engine which will have access to huge inventory. Hotelbids existing platform aims to drive huge eWalk-in business to these properties.
Financials: Upon request
Inder Sharma
Entrepreneur and an environmentalist
Founder – Few of Inder’s ventures (Hotel.com, medibuy, Hotelsupplies.com, UPHILL Fuel Technologies)
IBOS.com- An Incubator in USA developing next generation Technologies & Products.
ZYGOR Energy- (Investor in cutting edge electric Motor & Power generation Technology)
Inder Sharma is a visionary, a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor and an environmentalist seeking practical solutions to everyday problems. Mr. Sharma has founded 15 companies in the last 20 years varying from hospital solutions to energy efficient lighting. After 7 years of a successful career in real estate as a licensed broker, he moved to the internet space in 1996 and founded hotel.com, which was acquired by Expedia in 2001. Next, he founded iBOS, an e-commerce company which developed proprietary software for e-commerce supply chain management platforms. The same year, Mr. Sharma founded hotelsupplies.com which was licensed to Choicebuy.com, operated by Choice Hotels International, USA.
In 1997, Mr. Sharma co-founded Medibuy Inc. an internet company focused on Hospital Supply Chain Management. Medibuy was funded in excess of $100M and Goldman Sachs filed S-1 with a $1.5Billion valuation in 2001. In 2002 Medibuy merged with GHX, a consortium owned by GE Medical, Siemens, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic.
Mr. Sharma founded Uphill Fuel Technology which manufactures a device which reduces 40%-60% emissions in diesel and petrol vehicles. Sharma’s incubator IBOS.com has recently launched, Hotelbids, his latest Application launched in India and will be launching this bidding platform in USA in January 2017. Hotelbids seeks to solve the problem of the hotel gap in which it aims to fill vacant rooms and for the bidder’s price while increasing bottom line of hoteliers.
Inder finished his Bachelor of Science from Kurukshetra University, India and later attended post graduation program in Botany. Sharma also volunteered and has taught entrepreneurial classes at Marshall School of Business at USC, Los Angeles. Mr. Sharma has also been involved in philanthropic projects in India. He is married with two kids and lives in Anaheim, California (USA).
Aneesh Chopra
Entrepreneur and Technology Wizard
A Technology geek, Microsoft Certified Solution Provider,
Nominated Top-Expert on Experts-exchange.com continuously 3 years in a row.
15+ years of IT & software Development experience.
Worked for Counterspace, Akamai, HeadStrong (formerly Techspan), Aon Hewitt, Compro on different software solutions over the years. Completed over 60+ Softwares/Projects successfully, worked and handled different size of dev-team in 8+ programming languages.
Founder / CTO – Paavu Technologies Pvt Ltd, an IT service company specialized in full stack Mobile app development
Co-Founder / CTO – HotelBids Inc