Onriva chairman and CEO Vajid Jafri
Business-travel-focused travel platform Onriva may not have the industry's highest profile, but it launched five years ago and reports inventory from more than two million travel suppliers and wholesalers. Chairman and CEO Vajid Jafri said he wanted to enter the industry with a splash, not a ripple.
"We've been around for five years, but nobody hears about us because I don't do interviews," said Jafri, who previously was founder and CEO of air ticket consolidator Mondee. "We were still in stealth mode, and we just wanted to stay under the radar."
Over those five years of stealth mode, which Jafri at last week's Phocuswright Conference said now is ending, Onriva has worked to build what Jafri called a "model of abundance" in content for business travelers. Basic access to the marketplace is free, though it requires a sign up for membership, and the platform has paid membership levels with amenities including cash back on bookings, specialized agent support and reporting.
The platform pulls in inventory from numerous distribution sources into a single interface, where the transaction remains within Onriva, Jafri said. Sources include direct supplier channels, including airlines via the New Distribution Capability standard, online travel agencies, global distribution systems and travel management companies. The platform then uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to direct travelers to the best option while staying within their corporate policies, he said.
"You can buy from anywhere," according to Jafri. "You create a world of abundance and the freedom to go do what you want to do and give the travelers and travel managers the tools to see that the traveler understands not by reading a 100-page policy but by an AI-driven advisory that tells the traveler that they are not making a good choice."
Besides the paid tiers for usage, Onriva also earns revenue from a fintech product that it offers suppliers to protect them from fraud, declined cards and chargebacks on transactions during the platform. It also earns revenue from providing data to suppliers that it can glean from its users' booking behaviors, Jafri said.
"We understand the customer with a 360-degree view because they buy air from us, hotels from us and cars from us," he said. "They stay with us and share their information with us, and that information is how we can customize the product for them in partnership with our suppliers."
As of now, Onriva reports doing business with more than 3,500 small and medium-sized companies that represent more than $3 billion in travel purchasing volume. It has built its customer base by partnering with firms that have large portfolios of companies and can get those companies on board, he said.
It also is talking to larger companies interested in the AI capabilities, particularly those moving away from the "old world" of extensive travel policies, he said.
"There is a spectrum of company policies," Jafri said. "On one end is a large company like GM with a big, manual policy that everyone has to follow, and at the other end is a company like Netflix," he said, citing Netflix's policy five-word travel policy, "Act in Netflix's best interest."
"They trust that their employees will do the right thing," he said. "Our platform allows them to do that, but it also verifies by the reporting that they [are doing the right thing]."
In the meantime, Onriva has added several travel industry luminaries to its executive roster and board. As chief operating officer, it hired former Marriott digital executive George Corbin, who "took the Marriott e-commerce business from $200 million to $15 billion" and "is one of the most sought-after executives in the online industry," according to Jafri. Mike Remedios, formerly the chief technology officer for European OTA LastMinute.com and also a former technology executive at Expedia and eBay, joined as Onriva's CTO. Former American Express Global Business Travel and BCD Travel sales executive Ben Parodi is Onriva's EVP of sales. As CFO, Onriva hired Steve Dunn, who had the same position for Microsoft's SME business. Former Global Business Travel Association executive director Mike McCormick recently joined as Onriva's EVP of business development.
Onriva's board members include former ARC CEO Mike Premo, former Marriott head of e-commerce Shafiq Khan and Dan Charron, chairman of merchant global services for Fiserv's First Data, with which Onriva has a partnership for its fintech product, Jafri said.