The last year has hit the business travel industry with some hard changes; lockdowns, closing of borders and the cancellation of many business trips. Acomodeo was also impacted by this decline in business travel volume: up to 50% of all planned business trips were cancelled during the February and March 2020 period. However, compared to other accommodation concepts, serviced apartments remained open and Acomodeo was able to provide accommodation for many stranded travelers. This strengthened the awareness of serviced apartments as a reliable accommodation option and increased the confidence in the market.
Acomodeo embraced the advantage of this growing attentiveness and continues to focus on development in service, content and product in order to offer increased value to its customers.
By expanding Acomodeos bookable apartment inventory by 37 percent to 1.8 million units during 2020, travelers now have even more serviced apartments to choose from. The availability of bookable serviced apartments in different worldwide destinations has also climbed to 162 countries and territories.
Furthermore, Acomodeo increased the speed of development of the product and improvement of its flexible technology. Through various integrations for example with leading online booking tools (OBT’s), such as SAP Concur and Amadeus cytric, the modular technology was further developed and adapted to the needs of corporate customers.
This added value is recognized by many customers, who trust Acomodeo's booking solution and started working with the unique technology and service solution. As a result, the multinational customer base of Acomodeo has increased by 35%, the number of blue chip clients by 60% and the customer satisfaction rate remained high at 92,9%. Acomodeo also developed the opportunity for apartment operators to support the safety of travelers by specifying their hygiene and safety information on the platform.
These developments are summarized by the founder and CEO of Acomodeo Eric-Jan Krausch: “Even though we faced hard times, we have maintained and even increased our passion and drive. We have focused on evolving, whether by expanding inventory, service or technology. Based on the increased awareness of serviced apartments, the growth in our customer base and the first glimmers of borders opening as well as the vaccinations increasing, we are positive that in the second half of the year business travel will start recovering."
