Logitravel Group, the tourism group that emerged from the OTA Logitravel, which has grown to become a business holding company with both B2C and B2B businesses that operate worldwide, started 2020 with great growth prospects. In 2019, Logitravel Group achieved significant growth both in terms of turnover and EBITDA, reaching a turnover of € 800 million, 10% more than the previous year. Divisions of the business, such as Smyrooms the bed bank and Logitravel.com lead the growth through significant expansion internationally. Strategic markets such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and France contributed to this growth.

Despite the complicated decisions that have had to be made, Logitravel Group faces the post-covid era with great strength and new projects. 6 months after the declaration of the State of Alarm in Spain and the closure of borders worldwide, Logitravel Group has secured the necessary cash and liquidity for the future, and has been gradually recovering the team since May. As of September 1 and after a great effort, 50% of the employees are already back working in the business, and the plan is to progressively continue recovering jobs in the coming months.

Manny Fontenla Novoa, President of Logitravel Group commented : ‘As an industry, tourism has had to face many challenges in the past, but nothing compared to the impact of the Coronavirus. Both the severity and the duration of this crisis are unprecedented and unfortunately we have to prepare for the impact it will continue to have in 2021. ‘And he adds “Our current plans are based on the fact that the market will not return to the levels of 2019 until the middle of 2022. By then we hope to be well positioned, thanks to our digital structure to gain market share in the main markets where we operate. ‘

The company’s future strategy is based, on the one hand, on the consolidation of its 2 key pillars, the OTA and the bedbank, which, even though they are far from the 2019 figures, are behaving very positively.

The Group has taken advantage of the pandemic to restructure another of its key divisions, the B2B channel of traditional travel agencies, for which it is strongly committed to all markets where it operates. Traveltool e-services plans to develop new tools and products that help agencies in the tough process of digitizing the tourism business.

Adding credibility and to reinforce the experience of this division, Chema Hoyos joins the team as International Sales Director in collaboration with the Smytravel commercial team.

On the expansion of the B2B channel, Tomeu Bennasar CEO of Logitravel Group explains: “We see great opportunities to grow our B2B business in our main source markets. I am delighted that Chema Hoyos is joining the team lead by Diego Rosales and the Traveltino team. Together with the Director of Traveltool e-services, Toni Frau, and the Director of Smyflights and responsible for Transport, Toni Cortés, we have an experienced team to face and challenge the issues faced by the B2B sector of traditional travel agencies.

For his part, Diego Rosales, head of the Group’s Purchasing and Tour Operation area, explains: ‘We are all very happy to welcome Chema to our team and we look forward to working together. He will undoubtedly bring a wealth of experience to the business. ‘

Another of the strengths of Logitravel Group, especially now, is its structure and fully digital operations. Fontenla Novoa comments ‘With the pandemic we are seeing that the digitization process of customers has accelerated, who demand products online more than ever. Not only tourist products but any type of mass consumer product has experienced a growing demand online that is here to stay.

We are specialists in both technology and product and we are going to take advantage of this consolidation of online shopping to grow in the market. ‘

Since the reactivation of tourism, the different divisions of the Logitravel Group have provided a lot of information about the new normality in travel, communicating all the protocols of hotel chains, airlines and other providers in the face of the new situation, as well as offering a selection of ‘Logi Travel Safe ‘recommended by the company’s product and quality team for complying with important prevention measures and offering differential advantages such as its location, structure, services, etc. Likewise, Logitravel Group has repositioned all the available product offer, profiling the coastal, domestic and national island product, compared to the long distance and cruise offer.