Ziad Minkara (right), CEO of CDS Groupe, and Pierre Mesnage, Managing Director of Rydoo’s travel division, unveil the new name: Goelett.

Following CDS Groupe’s acquisition of Rydoo’s travel business, the CEO of the hotel distribution operator talks about the ambitions of the association between these two renowned players. On the evening of Tuesday September 6, Rydoo travel was officially renamed Goelett.

Remind us of the strategy behind CDS’s acquisition of the Travel division of Rydoo last May…

Ziad Minkara : CDS has been providing business hotel solutions for 20 years. For 3 years, just before the crisis, thanks to our financial partners IDI and Access Capital, our ambition was to position CDS as a leader in France and a key player in Europe. Today, just as we have Booking and Expedia on the “leisure” hotel side, Sabre and Amadeus, Travelport incidentally in Europe, on the BT side we have three HBTs: HCorpo (Accor), Germany’s HRS and us.

As we are an integrated player across the entire distribution chain, from content to OBT integration, we are keen to expand through external growth. When Rydoo Travel & Expense came to us in May and said “We want Rydoo to become an Expense-only player, we’re selling the T&E part, so we looked at the opportunity very carefully.

Discussions opened up very naturally, as this acquisition was in line with our strategy of expanding in Europe, remaining “UX centered” and with a strong “business hotel” focus.

And what made CDS a “good buyer” for Rydoo T&E?

The complexity of an OBT is not so much the tech as the fact of being considered a true software publisher, with the business model that this implies, which is very viable, even very profitable in many fields. Unfortunately not in the travel sector: these models have difficulty in becoming self-sufficient and must be backed by an operator: Amex GBT, SAP, Amadeus… Rydoo T&E, for its part, will be based on the hotel business.

Stripped of its purely Expense section, what will this “second-generation” Rydoo look like?

Rydoo will become an agnostic tool, retaining all its freedom for expense. Our ambition is to become the BT marketplace in Europe, supporting our long-standing customers including Havas in France, as well as FCM and VoyagExpert, which has European ambitions. In fact, our aim is to appeal to all agencies wishing to deliver simple tools from purely digital and international players, interested in high-performance technology without heavy investment and with a simple business model, backed by a group that is strong both capital-wise and in terms of volumes.

Exactly what volumes are we talking about?

In a few figures, CDS Groupe and Rydoo travel represent a customer portfolio worth just over €500 million in hotel sales. Just over a million hotels, including 5,000 direct contracts with independents. But above all, 1 million users on the interface. We want to capitalize on the Group’s 200 employees, including 50 in R&D, to continue innovating in this market, and on our customer support to provide a quality service based on a tool that’s easy to deploy, integrate and use.

Regarding company size… It’s in an agency’s interest to deploy Rydoo for very small and medium-sized businesses, for “Egencia”-type customers, that’s the core target. In a call for tenders, Rydoo “climbs” on the SBF 250 (between the CAC 40 and the ETI, editor’s note). As for CDS, it’s more CAC 40 and we’re also “going down” on SBF. And both entities are familiar with all public procurement contracts. So we cover all market segments.

Now all you have to do is spread the word about this new association. A busy back-to-school season?

Very! We’re going on tour! We’ll be present at Univ’AirPlus the day after tomorrow (September 8, editor’s note), alongside Frmmes du Tourisme on September 13, the Marco Polo evening on the eve of the IFTM, in the IFTM Business Lounge with two joint but separate stands, we’ll be partnering the AFTM for their workshop on post-crisis consolidation, we’ll be with EPSA on their Barometer, with APECA on CSR, but also in Lyon and Toulouse. I forget. And we’re going to round off this wonderful year by being an official partner of the Lauriers du Voyage d’Affaires.

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