The holiday deals website Safarna, the brainchild of the Cobone.com founder Paul Kenny, is looking to become the region’s travel portal of choice.
The company, formerly named Triperna, was founded 14 months ago as a sister website to Cobone, offering discount holiday vouchers.
Backed by the hedge fund Tiger Global Management, it will operate as an independent company from January after the founders of Expatwoman.com bought out Cobone’s stake for an undisclosed sum this month.
“The travel market in the region is worth US$50 billion (Dh183.63bn),” said Pieter Sleeboom, Safarna’s co-founder and chief operating officer. “Currently 20 per cent of that is spent online, so there is a huge opportunity in the market.”
The market, however, is becoming more crowded – the likes of Holiday Factory, Vaya Travel and international players are turning their attention to the region.
“They’re making quite big inroads to traditional forms of bookings,” said Peter Goddard, the managing director at TRI Hospitality Consulting. “The problem is that, from a hotelier’s standpoint, it invariably puts a lot of pressure on the average daily rate. Hoteliers would be disinclined to go down that route.”
The region’s online travel market is not as developed as those in Europe and the United States.
Many expatriates are familiar with booking.com and Expedia, and are sticking with those international sites.
“What we want to do is to be the leading travel agency in the Middle East. Our revenues have been growing 10 per cent month on month,” said Mr Sleeboom. “What we offer now is a combination of hotel search and discount deals.”
Safarna has incorporated hotel accommodation on its website and offers discounts for 300,000 hotels around the world for its claimed 2 million subscribers.
Although e-commerce is booming in the region, most transactions are still conducted with cash.
Safarna has partnered with Careem, an on-demand car service, to collect payment. About 40 per cent of its customers use this option, with the rest opting for online payments.
Safarna will also focus on mobile commerce, launching an app in the new year to tap the region’s $3bn mobile-commerce market.
“It’s a habit. You need to build the trust. The first payment is usually with cash and the second is with credit card,” said Mr Sleeboom.
The company also offers interest payment plans of zero per cent for six months for those who want to pay for their holiday in instalments rather than in a lump sum.
“We focus on hard-working singles and young families – people who want everything easy and want it now. We have a partnership with flydubai, and together we create packages for a good price for these travellers,” he said.
thamid@thenational.ae
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Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday
Borussia Dortmund v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm kick-off UAE)
Bayer Leverkusen v Schalke (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Cologne (5.30pm)
Mainz v Arminia Bielefeld (5.30pm)
Augsburg v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Bayern Munich (8.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Freiburg (10.30pm)
Sunday
VfB Stuttgart v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Union Berlin v Hertha Berlin (8pm)
MATCH INFO
Wales 1 (Bale 45 3')
Croatia 1 (Vlasic 09')
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
