online-travel-agency
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LULUTRIP Sold the Part of the Trip Everyone Else Left to Chance
The clever move was not to plan the whole holiday. It was to take charge of the confusing middle - the tours, tickets, transfers and human help that begin after a Chinese-speaking traveler lands.
Sastaticket Sold the Journey. Then It Had to Handle the Refund.
The Pakistani booking company grew by putting travel choices on a screen. Its harder education came when flights stopped, customers called, and selling a ticket was no longer enough.
tiket.com Wants to Book Your Trip. And Keep You After It.
The Indonesian travel company nearly ran out of reasons to stay open. Its next act connects flights, family weekends and everyday shopping - with a sharper promise when plans go wrong.
Alvaro Silberstein Is Turning Accessibility Into Travel Infrastructure
A Patagonia expedition revealed a market hiding in plain sight. Alvaro Silberstein built Wheel the World to turn scattered accessibility details into reliable travel infrastructure.
How a Phuket Startup Became Asia's Ticket to the World
It started with two hotel websites and a tropical hunch that Asia would book its next holiday on a phone. Two decades later, Agoda runs one of the planet's busiest travel marketplaces - and quietly powers the trips you book somewhere else.
Despegar Is Building the Operating System for Latin America’s Vacation
The Buenos Aires-born travel company survived the dot-com bust, regional currency shocks and a pandemic. Now, inside Prosus, it is stitching flights, beds, credit, loyalty and AI into one Latin American checkout.
The Hardest Part of Your Trip Is the Part 12Go Wants to Make Boring
Flights were digitized years ago. The bus to the pier, the ferry after it and the van on the other side are still a mess - and that stubborn gap is 12Go's business.
The Local Travel Platform Teaching South Africans to Book Home First
A R12,000 garage project became a homegrown booking habit. Now LekkeSlaap is betting that local language, human help and 38,000-plus stays can keep travel value closer to home.
Expedia Is Building the Travel Internet Behind the Travel Internet
The familiar booking brands are only the shop window. Expedia Group's more consequential bet is to become the shared infrastructure for travelers, suppliers, advertisers and thousands of businesses that want to sell a trip.
Zeeyarah - Superior Tracks Travel & Tourism
Zeeyarah - Superior Tracks Travel & Tourism (Superior Tracks Travel and Tourism LLC) is a Dubai-based online travel agency and B2B travel aggregator that was the first company in the Gulf and MENA region to earn IATA NDC Level 4 certification. Branded as Zeeyarah in the Gulf and Flyintrip elsewhere, it connects consumers and travel-trade partners directly to airline and hotel inventory through New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology, offering flights, hotels, holiday packages, transfers, car rentals and cruises. Founded in 2016 by former Emirates Airlines executive Mohammed Gaus, the company blends deep airline-industry expertise with a technology-first distribution platform.
Wheel the World
Wheel the World is a travel platform that makes booking accessible trips reliable for people with disabilities and seniors. Founded in 2017 by Chilean childhood friends Alvaro Silberstein and Camilo Navarro, it treats accessibility as an information problem: trained mappers collect 200+ verified data points per hotel room, activity, and destination, so a wheelchair user can check the exact door width, bed height, and shower type before they book. The company now covers 8,000+ travel services across 200+ destinations and guarantees accessibility on rooms booked through its site.
Cruisebound
Cruisebound is a digital-first online travel agency that makes cruise research and booking as simple as buying a flight. The platform lets travelers compare more than 27,000 itineraries across roughly 19 major cruise lines, lock in transparent prices with no booking fees, hold cabins free for 24 hours, pay in installments, and earn Cruisebound Cash rewards - all backed by a hybrid model of self-service technology and human cruise experts. Founded by alumni of Rocket Travel (a Booking Holdings company), it targets a new generation of cruisers with an e-commerce experience instead of the traditional quote-request phone call.
Pierre-Olivier Lepage
Pierre-Olivier Lepage is the CEO and co-founder of Cruisebound, a New York-based digital-first cruise booking platform he launched in 2022 after struggling to book his own first cruise online. A Polytechnique Montréal engineering graduate who earned dual MIT master's degrees in Transportation and Operations Research, Lepage previously built operations at Rocket Travel (a Booking Holdings company) and consulted at McKinsey before betting that the $66B cruise industry — where 80% of bookings still flow through travel agents — was ripe for a tech-native overhaul. Cruisebound has since raised $37.8M in total funding, serves customers averaging nine years younger than typical cruisers, and routes 42% of support queries through AI, positioning itself as the fastest-growing national online cruise agency.