Global travel distribution, emerging as an "invisible giant"

Ask AI · How is RateHawk’s B2B transformation reshaping the travel distribution landscape?

Business surges by 110%, with Asia-Pacific as the biggest growth engine

Over the past decade, the spotlight in the online travel industry has largely been on consumer-facing OTA platforms.

But behind these platforms, there’s actually a much larger network—an enterprise-to-enterprise (B2B) travel distribution system. It connects millions of hotels worldwide, hundreds of thousands of travel agencies, and a steadily growing demand for corporate travel, forming the “supply chain system” that supports the operation of the global tourism industry.

RateHawk, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, is one of the fastest-growing players in this chain.

As a B2B booking platform under Emerging Travel Group (ETG), RateHawk already covers travel professionals in 120+ countries, offering 3.2 million+ accommodation listings, flights from 400+ airlines, and ground transfer services across 150+ countries.

Even more noteworthy is that over the past year, the number of partners this company has worked with grew by more than 50%, and its net booked revenue in the Asia-Pacific region grew by over 110% year over year. In today’s increasingly fierce competition among travel technology companies worldwide, the platform is trying to redefine the efficiency of travel distribution through its technical capabilities, inventory, and localization.

ETG Chief Commercial Officer Ilya Kravtsov, speaking in an interview with 环球旅讯 CEO Li Chao, said the platform is building a new global travel distribution network across three dimensions: AI, supply-chain integration, and localized operations.

Ilya Kravtsov

From B2C to B2B: business model transformation

Many people don’t know that Emerging Travel Group behind RateHawk was initially a pure B2C platform.

Thirteen years ago, the company mainly served individual consumers with hotel booking services. But as competition in the market intensified, the team quickly realized that the real scale opportunity wasn’t in the consumer © end—it was in providing underlying infrastructure for travel agencies and corporate travel.

So, the company began a strategic transformation.

Today, about 90% of the group’s business has shifted to the B2B space, and it has gradually formed three core brand systems:

• RateHawk: a B2B booking platform for travel agencies worldwide

• Roundtrip: a corporate travel management (CTM) platform

• ZenHotels: a hotel booking platform for consumers

Within this ecosystem, RateHawk is the core platform that has fully B2B-ified across the group.

Unlike traditional hotel distribution platforms, RateHawk doesn’t just provide hotel inventory—it also integrates flights, train tickets, transfers, and car rentals, enabling travel agencies to build complete itineraries within a single system.

Ilya Kravtsov explained that this “full-scope distribution” model significantly reduces operational complexity for travel agencies: “Travel agencies no longer need to switch between multiple systems or contact different suppliers. All plans and bookings can be completed through one platform.”

He added: “Our accommodation supply is sourced from 350+ global wholesalers, online travel platforms (OTAs), regional destination management companies (DMCs), and 250k+ directly connected accommodation listings—covering everything from world-renowned hotel chains to boutique hotels and short-rent apartments. This rich supply allows us to cover most of the popular destinations worldwide that Asian travelers love.”

“Travel agencies no longer have to keep switching back and forth among multiple systems, nor do they need to connect separately with different suppliers. With one platform, you can complete itinerary planning and booking.”

Traditional travel agency systems are often criticized for being: complicated interfaces, cumbersome operations, and redundant data.

One of RateHawk’s important strategies is bringing B2C product design experience into the B2B domain.

Because the company previously built a consumer-facing platform, when designing its B2B system, the team placed special emphasis on user experience.

For example: simplifying the hotel comparison interface, optimizing search logic, and reducing irrelevant price information.

Ilya Kravtsov said: “Travel agencies don’t want to face hundreds of nearly identical quotes—the system should help them filter out the options that are truly valuable.”

AI is changing the efficiency of travel distribution

Within RateHawk, AI has already become one of the core operational tools.

Currently, the platform has introduced automation and predictive models across multiple stages:

1. Customer service automation

About 50% of hotel communications have been handled by AI agents.

For example: modifying orders, checking inventory, confirming bookings.

These automated workflows significantly shorten response times, allowing human teams to focus on more complex issues.

2. Supplier quality assessment

AI models continuously analyze: suppliers’ fulfillment rates, customer reviews, and service consistency.

The system can automatically identify high-risk suppliers or potentially problematic orders, intervening in advance.

3. Price optimization and bundling

The platform has also developed an intelligent price comparison and price-mixing system that automatically calculates the best quotes from multiple supply sources. This not only improves price competitiveness, but also avoids information overload. Ilya Kravtsov said: “AI is not meant to replace people—it’s meant to make the whole distribution system run faster and more reliably.”

No local payments makes it hard to truly enter Asia

Among global travel technology companies, many platforms grow slowly in the Asia market. The reasons are often not the product, but insufficient localization capabilities.

RateHawk views “last-mile localization” as a core strategy for entering new markets.

For example: setting up local operations teams in APAC, offering multilingual customer service such as Chinese, and integrating local payment methods.

To date, the company has already enabled digital wallet payments in markets such as China and Thailand and the Philippines.

Ilya Kravtsov believes: “If a platform can’t support local payment methods, it’s basically very difficult to truly enter the market.”

In addition to payments, the company is also working with local major platforms.

For example: in China, it works with super-apps such as Ctrip and Meituan through technology integration, and in India, it collaborates with platforms such as MakeMyTrip. Through these partnerships, RateHawk can quickly reach a broader user base.

Business surges by 110%

Asia-Pacific becomes the biggest growth engine

The Asia-Pacific region has already become RateHawk’s fastest-growing market.

Over the past year, the company achieved more than 110% business growth in Asia-Pacific.

Currently, the team size in the region has already exceeded 50 people, and it plans to further expand.

Key markets include: China, Australia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

In China, RateHawk not only partners with travel agencies, but also connects via API interfaces with major OTAs, travel operators, and other companies.

Corporate travel is becoming an important growth driver for the global travel industry.

Ilya Kravtsov explained: “Many large enterprises are building their own booking systems, and our APIs can directly integrate with these platforms to provide them with our accommodation supply.”

In the travel technology industry, APIs have become an important piece of infrastructure.

In 2024, the number of RateHawk API partnerships doubled, with more than 500 new partners added.

These include major OTAs such as Ctrip, and corporate travel platforms.

The role of APIs mainly shows up in three areas:

• Automating booking workflows

• Expanding distribution channels

• Embedding into third-party platform ecosystems

For example, some corporate travel platforms can directly call RateHawk inventory via API to enable instant booking.

In the future, the company plans to continue improving: API speed, success rates, and feature expansion.

So more travel technology companies can develop services on top of their infrastructure.

As the scale expands rapidly, external attention has also turned to whether Emerging Travel Group will go public.

The company does not rule out an IPO, but its stance is relatively cautious.

In recent years, after some travel technology companies went public, valuation fluctuations and share price declines occurred, leading many companies to choose more conservative strategies.

Ilya Kravtsov said: “Going public is always a possible option, but we’ll make a decision at the right time.”

In the short term, the company will still focus investment on three directions:

• Expanding directly contracted hotel partners

• Strengthening AI and automation technologies

• Deepening the APAC market layout

In the public eye, the travel industry seems to have always revolved around competition among OTAs.

But what truly determines industry efficiency is the distribution system behind it.

Between platforms, travel agencies, corporate travel companies, hotels, and airlines, there needs to be a network that can connect efficiently. RateHawk is trying to become one of these Global Travel Infrastructure players.

When more and more travel agencies, corporate travel platforms, and tech companies connect to the same inventory network via API, the balance of power in global travel distribution is also quietly changing.

Within this massive infrastructure network, a new set of “invisible giants” may be taking shape.