The online travel space in Russia is seeing a week of deals with Excursiopedia announcing its acquisition of event travel business Travelatus as well as funding news for another local online player.
Tours and activities specialist Excursiopedia (TLabs here) says the acquisition is in line with a strategy to become the leader in local activities while offers and content from the former will also now be featured on Travelatus.
The team at event travel specialist Travelatus (TLabs here) moves to Excursiopedia including Valentin Dombrovsky who becomes vice president of innovation while Vitaly Korobkin and Denis Volko take up development team leader roles.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed but sources estimate it to be a six figure sum.
Dombrovsky says:
"It was evident both companies were moving in the same direction in some ways. We both want to provide service for people choosing “smart travel” that is filled with different activities and best experiences. We were discussing possibilities of using Excursiopedia offers at Travelatus but then decided to unite our efforts in order to build a company that has strong potential to become a billion-dollar company."
Excursiopedia acquired outdoor activity specialist RangeUp back in October to expand its existing content base.
The European tours and activities sector is particularly hot at the moment with a PhoCusWright report shared recently with Tnooz showing huge potential.
In separate news, hotel booking service Oktogo, which acquired Russian review site Travel.ru in September, confirmed funding of $5 million earlier this week.
CEO Marina Kolesnik told Tnooz the funds would go towards marketing and product development with existing investors involved in the round as well as VEB Innovation.
Travel.ru is to be the main brand moving forward although the Oktogo name will not disappear according to Kolesnik.
A new travel.ru homepage has already been launched and additional products such as package tours and airfares will also be introduced.
"We are integrating the two companies to provide a single entry point for the Russian traveller. The main brand will be travel.ru and Oktogo will continue for hotels product. It's about being in contact with the consumer from the point of research."
Back in March, Oktogo announced funding of $11 million which has gone towards developing the brand as well as the travel.ru acquisition.