JOHANNESBURG — Olivier Gremillion – who is in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum – spent 7 years at Airbnb before joining global travel bookings website Booking.com. Now, he’s heading up Booking.com’s non-hotel business, providing a competitive alternative to that of Airbnb. Olivier has a good knowledge of the African travel market, including that of South Africa. And in this interview, he explains why he’s more upbeat than in previous years about the African travel market. – Gareth van Zyl
It’s a pleasure to welcome Olivier Gremillion, who is vice president at Booking.com. Olivier joins me now from Davos, Switzerland, where he’s at the World Economic Forum (WEF). Olivier, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
So, it’s interesting that you’re at Davos. Have you been there before previously? Is it a regular thing for representatives from Booking.com to attend Davos?
Sure, Booking.com has attended Davos before but it’s the first time for me. So, basically, one of the things we are trying to do here is a mix of meeting with government officials and some of the issues and topics that we have to discuss with them. As well as having some business meetings and attending some of the sessions. So, obviously, being able to do that in a few days all in the same place is very valuable.
And you, interestingly, previously come from Airbnb. Can you tell us more about your background there and how your experience there will help Booking.com?
Yes, I stayed at Airbnb for seven-years, in different roles, but we were leading Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the end of my tenure there. I joined Booking.com a year ago, and basically what I’m doing right now is taking care of all the non-hotel accommodation business. So, basically, on Booking.com you can book hotel rooms obviously, but you can book many other things like apartment villas and yachts and cottages, and boats and things like that, and tree houses etc. So, basically, I’m in charge of that part of the business for bookings globally based in Amsterdam.
That sounds to me like a direct competitor to Airbnb?
So, approaching that part of the market, there are many players in that field. But there are two things that are specific to us, compared to our competition in Airbnb, HomeAway and others. So, one is the fact that we have actually everything on one platform so, basically, hotels, and homes, apartments and unique places to stay. If you are a consumer you can actually arrive on the platform and basically book whatever you want because we have the most industry leading hotels globally, as well as in alternative accommodation. So, we have 5.8m options for homes and apartments alone. I think all of that on the same platform is definitely a very competitive advantage.
How many staff have you got at Booking.com and where are they all based?
Yes, so we have 17,000 people globally, obviously, a lot of our people are in Amsterdam, at our headquarters so, I would say a third is actually based there so that’s where we built the product where we do a lot of the marketing and stuff. But we also have 217 offices globally so, if you look at Africa, for instance, we have 10 offices and we’re opening the 11th one next week. We definitely have a strong footprint, with thousands of people all over the globe to our hotel and home partners.
That’s a huge presence. How many visitors do you have to your website on a daily basis?
We do 1.5m room nights per day so basically, we’ve had over 1bn guests on bookings. We started 20-years ago so, it’s definitely big numbers, globally, and we are all over the world, in all of the different countries, globally.
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What is your take on the African market? You’ve mentioned that you have a presence in Africa. At your role at Airbnb, previously you mentioned that you overlooked parts of Africa as well. What is Africa like as a travel destination right now? Is it still a hot market in many respects?
Yes, obviously, there have been some ups and downs in the past few years in many African markets, whether in Northern Africa or in some of the other countries, even SA has been affected by some geopolitical aspects or some… I remember SA had some water issues last summer so, definitely there’ve been some ups and downs. But I think we’re in a good trend now and we see that countries like SA, like Nigeria, and like Morocco, which are actually picking up very well. Recently we’ve been very surprised by Egypt as well, especially on the homes and apartments side, we’ve had like world freight that are things that we’ve not seen for quite some time. So, in 2018, for instance, in Eastern and Western Africa we opened 26,000 new partners, in 2018 alone. So, I think we are in a space right now where things are picking up, both from the outdoor market, there are people going to Africa from another country, as well as the outdoor market. You see that some of the outdoor markets are picking up. So, I’m pretty optimistic, more than I’ve been for quite a few years on the region as a whole, but obviously, there are some differences from country to country. But if you ask me about Africa as a whole, I’m more optimistic than I was in the past few years.
Just as a final question. What are the chief trends globally to look out for in the travel booking sector in 2019, do you think? What are some of the trends that are shaping your industry?
Yes, so there are a few things, from the fact that more and more people want to have a meaning when they travel, they want to learn something or they want to experience something. So, we did a study recently around why people actually are travelling more and more as they want some purpose, or they want to learn something. We’ve called something like a trip for our apprenticeship, so where people actually learn something and when they come back a better person, instead of just taking a vacation. So, that’s one trend definitely. The second one is people want to be more and more local. They want to have local experiences, to experience the local community, interact with the population, which was not always the case. I would say the third one, specific to homes and apartments, is that we’ve been doing a study every year as to whether people consider that type of accommodation and we see the numbers are growing every year. So, it’s more than a third of our population right now, who are travelling in the next 12 months. They say they will stay in some kind of alternative accommodation so, I would say these are three big trends that are impacting in a positive way because it means it’s more sustainable travel, it’s a more meaningful travel and it’s a more diverse travel as well.
Olivier, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today.
Thank you for having me.
