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The Company’s B2B Brand, RateHawk, launched in 2016, is an online hotel-booking platform designed for travel professionals. The platform provides access to more than 1 million accommodations worldwide through its API and web product. The Group sources its inventory – hotels, apartments, and hostels from 85 suppliers worldwide and 29,000 direct hotel contracts. RateHawk is used by over 9,500 travel professionals in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. The Company employs business development staff in 28 countries. The site is available in nine languages – English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, and Russian.&nbsp;RateHawk’s turnover grew by over 300% in 2018. Last year, the service started operating in 21 new markets: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Company plans to more than double its international staff to scale RateHawk and to continue its investments in technology.&nbsp;Felix Shpilman, Emerging Travel Group’s CEO, commented: “We are excited to scale RateHawk, our fast-growing global B2B service. RateHawk has demonstrated strong traction in all of its 28 launched countries and we continue to open new markets by deploying <a href="https://www.ratehawk.com/blog/categories/jobs/">local business development teams</a>. We intend to focus on the product, localization, and customer support to make RateHawk the default booking engine for any travel professional worldwide.”&nbsp;Lev Leviev, who will be representing investors on the Company’s Board of Directors, commented: "We are very impressed with the company’s traction. B2C maintains its leading position in the local market while B2B continues its fast growth across many regions. The Company has a clear strategy, focus, and solid execution capabilities to unlock further growth and value.”&nbsp;For Western and Southern Europe: RateHawk plans to hire commercial team of 50+ managers with a focus on business development. The Company plans to establish business relationships with 10,000+ partners over the next 12 months (a penetration level of ~25-30% of the B2B travel market in each country).&nbsp;For Central, Eastern and Northern Europe (the Baltic States, Balkans, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia): RateHawk plans to strengthen its team with an additional 25 employees in 20 countries to develop and maintain its positions in the region. Over the next year, RateHawk intends to sign up 6,000+ partners (a penetration level of ~45% of the B2B travel market in 20 countries).&nbsp;For North America (the USA and Canada): RateHawk will enter the region by establishing two commercial teams: one in the USA and one in Canada to secure simultaneous development. It plans to add 3,000+ partners to its portfolio in the region within one year.&nbsp;For the Middle East (Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Turkey): RateHawk intends to strengthen its presence in this region and open a headquarters in Dubai. The Company plans to triple its current number of partners within the next 12 months in the Gulf Cooperation Council markets (reaching over 1,700 partners in total). As for Turkey, RateHawk will double the existing team and triple the number of partners to sign up 2,500+ travel professionals.&nbsp;For Asia (Singapore and Malaysia): RateHawk plans to enter the region with a team of ~5 commercial managers and will focus on Singapore and Malaysia. Within a year, RateHawk plans to sign up a portfolio of 1,500+ partners.

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Emerging Travel Group (further – “the Company”), an international online travel group that operates in over 100 source markets with brands RateHawk, ZenHotels, and Ostrovok, has closed a $10M financing round led by technology entrepreneur Lev Leviev of LVL1 Group and the family office of Playrix co-founders, Igor and Dmitri Bukhman. The investment aims to accelerate the development and further international expansion of the Group.

Emerging Travel Group raises $10M in investments from a consortium of investors led by LVL1 Group

Davide Amaro has over 15 years of experience in tourism as a strategic consultant at the European level and as an international team manager. He has previously worked in leading companies in the tourism sector such as WebBeds, HRS.com and NH Hoteles among others, specializing in large commercial projects in the B2B sector.&nbsp;In his new role for RateHawk, Davide has joined Samia Lahlou, who has been the Business Development Manager in RateHawk’s Spanish team since January 2019. Samia has more than 20 years of experience in sales and marketing in multinational companies, including Cathay Pacific and Air France KLM. Together, Davide and Samia will continue to strengthen RateHawk’s position on the Spanish and Portuguese markets.&nbsp;Felix Shpilman, CEO of RateHawk, commented: “RateHawk already has partners in over 100 countries globally and cooperates with over 7,500 travel agencies. At the same time, we believe that there is a huge need in the Spanish and Portuguese markets for a user-friendly, high-tech, and supply-rich B2B hotel booking system. Therefore, we plan to continue our expansion in these countries and, over the long run, to make our product the preferred travel tool for all travel professionals globally. With our enhanced sales team, we will be better positioned to deliver our innovative engine to local travel industry professionals fully.”&nbsp;On his appointment, Davide Amaro commented: “I am excited to be joining RateHawk and to take the company’s growth strategy forward. RateHawk’s supply of over 1 million unique properties globally sourced from 85+ of the world’s best hotel suppliers, combined with cutting edge technology, a user-friendly interface, and excellent service provides tremendous value to our agency partners as we continue to scale up.”&nbsp;RateHawk’s mapping algorithms enable aggregating, processing, and deduplicating hotel content from both retail and wholesale players. RateHawk utilizes content prioritization systems, rate mixing mechanisms, various data structuring methods, advanced pricing, and inventory management systems for different channels, POS, and customer segments. Combining innovative technologies and extensive professional experience, RateHawk provides travel players with the world’s most comprehensive hotel-booking backend technology.

RateHawk.com (Emerging Travel Group), an online booking tool for travel professionals including travel agents and corporate travel bookers, announces the expansion of its Spanish team – RateHawk has appointed Davide Amaro as a Senior Sales Manager in Spain and Portugal.

RateHawk.com expands its team in Spain

The group presented the RateHawk brand to the expert community and discussed its growth in the international market. RateHawk is an online booking tool for travel professionals.&nbsp;The company’s stand was located in the Travel Technologies hall (7.1 B), featuring the very latest IT solutions for the travel business. A number of company divisions took part in the exhibition: the RateHawk international team held meetings with current partners and signed new cooperation agreements with travel agencies, the Supply team met with major hotel suppliers and hotel chains, and the API-integration team presented solutions for implementing partner programs. In total, ETG held over 250 meetings during the exhibition.&nbsp;Felix Shpilman, CEO of Emerging Travel Group, commented: “We have visited ITB Berlin on numerous occasions, and this year we decided to exhibit our own brand for the first time. ITB is probably the biggest event of the year for the professional tourism community – this is where companies present their latest innovations and set the trends for the industry’s continued growth. We are delighted at the progress made and are already preparing for ITB Berlin 2020.”&nbsp;

Emerging Travel Group, the company managing brands RateHawk, ZenHotels, Ostrovok, and B2B.Ostrovok, participated this year for the first time in the international travel exhibition ITB Berlin, which ran from 6 to 10 March.

Emerging Travel Group in full view at the ITB Berlin Travel Exhibition

RateHawk has been active in markets of Europe, South &amp; North Americas, and Africa for the last two years. The service has operated on French, Spanish and Polish markets in test mode and is now officially entering these markets with a local business team at local offices, together with a fully localized product. More than 6,000 industry customers in over 100 markets use RateHawk. The Company plans to increase the number of partners to 15,000 by the end of 2019: with 1,000 agents in France, 500 agents in Poland and 300 agents in Spain alone.&nbsp;Felix Shpilman, CEO of Emerging Travel Group, commented: “Our plan for 2019 is to place a dedicated focus on growing our business in Europe – to strengthen our market position in key European markets.”&nbsp;RateHawk was founded in 2016 and is owned by Emerging Travel Group, along with ZenHotels, Ostrovok, and B2B.Ostrovok. RateHawk’s turnover has grown 300% in 2018. The site is available in eight languages – English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian.&nbsp;In addition to booking accommodation, the company also provides group and individual hotel reservations, transfers, car hire, and other travel-related services.

RateHawk.com (Emerging Travel Group), an online platform for travel professionals, including travel agents and corporate travel bookers, announces its formal launch in the European markets. RateHawk’s inventory of over 1mn+ properties in over 220 countries worldwide is now available to travel businesses in France, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, UK, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Online travel booking service for travel professionals RateHawk.com expands into European markets

Financial Summary &amp; Operating Metrics&nbsp;<ul><li>Gross booking value increased 46% year-over-year to $713mn.</li><li>B2C booking accounted for 47% of the turnover share.</li><li>Group’s B2C sites processed over 500,000 unique customers in 2018.</li><li>Group’s B2B portfolio increased to more than 24,000 partners (travel agencies, tour operators, travel management companies (TMCs) and corporate clients)</li><li>International brands (ZenHotels and RateHawk) revenue share increased by 88% compared to the previous year and contributed 32% of the Group’s total revenue (up from 17% in 2017).</li><li>RateHawk’s turnover increased over 400% in 2018 vs 2017.</li></ul>&nbsp;Business Highlights&nbsp;<ul><li>In 2018 ZenHotels was localized into Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Polish languages.</li><li>RateHawk launched in 21 new regions in 2018: France, Italy, UK, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Czechia, South Africa, Turkey, and Israel. The tool has been localized into French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish languages.</li><li>Ostrovok.ru brand has launched a strategic partnership with Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline.</li></ul>&nbsp;Felix Shpilman, CEO of Emerging Travel Group, commented: “Although 2018 was a challenging year for the travel industry, we are very happy with our growth and international expansion in both B2B and B2C lines of business. We launched in many new markets, found new partners, and continued to invest in technology. We hope to continue growing at a similar rate in 2019.”

Emerging Travel Group, the parent company behind RateHawk (b2b), ZenHotels (b2c), and Ostrovok (b2b) announced its 2018 operating results.

Emerging Travel Group releases its 2018 results