London tech startup shakes up travel sector with “innovative” booking platform

A London tech startup has shaken up the travel sector with an innovative booking platform allowing room sellers to work with any hotel directly.

Impala, has named the new approach to hotel distribution as ‘Open Distribution’, allowing any travel business to join and gain access to new markets. Room sellers can access the technology and inventory they need to build new, differentiated products, whilst Impala manages onboarding, content quality and payment.

Enabled by modern API infrastructure, Open Distribution is easy for any travel business to join. Hotels can gain access to new markets, and both sides keep more of the revenue they earn.

Ben Stephenson, Impala CEO: “Impala was born out of the idea that we needed to rebuild travel’s infrastructure to pave the way for the future.

“The Open Distribution approach is already breaking down barriers to entry for the sector, and removing layers of complexity that hotels and room sellers have faced for years.

“We’re already bringing innovation to some of the biggest names in the industry - and enabling new start-ups to build travel businesses from scratch.”

Impala is providing the innovation layer for an influx of new travel start-ups that are adapting to major changes in traveller behaviour such as remote working and longer stays.

RemoteDream was able to go to market incredibly quickly, thanks to Impala lowering the barriers to entry and removing the need to integrate with other parties such as channel managers.

Joeri Nanov, co-founder, RemoteDream, said: “Impala has helped us tremendously with our go-to market, both in terms of speed and initial investment in technology.

“Because of Impala we were able to go from offering zero to now hundreds of locations without having to spend time on integrating 60+ Property Management Systems. This has saved us a lot of time and money. Impala made it feasible for us.”