To provide technology and digital tools to private homeowners of properties intended for the vacation rental market. This is the objective of Bookiply, a technology service provider subsidiary of the German vacation rental search engine Holidu, which has just opened a branch in Barcelona. Located on Sancho de Ávila street, in the 22@ district, Bookiply's office is managed by Elena Short, a professional who until now had been the company's commercial manager in the Balearic Islands.
"Our goal is to make the search and booking of vacation homes as easy as possible and to further professionalize the market," explains Bookiply, who points out that due to the pandemic, this type of private accommodation is booming. "We are very happy to be able to enter one of the most important tourist regions in Europe," says Johannes Siebers, CEO and co-founder of Holidu.
Bookiply already has offices in the Spanish market in the Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Malaga, and Alicante, and now arrives in Barcelona with the challenge of increasing its offer of accommodations in Spain for travelers from all over the world who seek this type of accommodation through Holidu. Bookiply assures that it already serves more than 4,000 vacation home landlords in Spain and that its clients benefit "from great visibility among tourists from large markets such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany when it comes to increasing their bookings."
According to Elena Short, with its arrival in Barcelona, Bookiply wants to "help vacation home owners in Catalonia maximize the profitability of their properties." According to the company, this segment of tourist offerings "is not entirely transparent and is technologically backward compared to other markets." "Overlapping bookings, manual management, and cancellations continue to be a big problem for both owners and vacationers," explains Short.
The German company, based in Munich, markets software that allows owners to manage their properties and publish them on major industry platforms, such as Airbnb, Booking, Google, Holidu, or Bookiply itself, reducing, they claim, management effort by 80%. Bookings are managed centrally, and a free photographic service with multilingual descriptive texts is also offered to increase visibility.
Bookiply highlights that Catalonia is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain, positioning itself as the fourth most requested destination in 2021, after the Balearic Islands, Andalusia, and Alicante. "This 2021, searches in Catalonia have increased by 64% compared to 2019, also increasing the average spending per reservation by 11%," they point out.
Brothers Johannes and Michael Siebers founded Holidu in 2014, becoming a high-growth startup that manages more than 10,000 holiday homes and apartments in major European vacation destinations, with a presence in about twenty markets. Since its inception, Holidu has raised 120 million dollars in funding. The last round, of 45 million dollars, closed last May after the 50% growth experienced during 2020 thanks to the pandemic, as for safety reasons many tourists have preferred to stay in private homes and rural establishments instead of large hotels. The Series D round was led by 83North, with the participation of existing shareholders such as Prime Ventures, EQT Ventures, Coparion, Senovo, Kees Koolen, Venture Stars, Lios Ventures and Chris Hitchen, according to TechCrunch.