GRNconnect.com, an online B2B hotel booking portal, is widely successful, offering facilities to book transfers and activities tours to over 400K hotels and 200K apartments across the globe. BOTT is happy to share excerpts from an exclusive chat with Mr. Deepak Narula, Managing Director, GRNconnect, who has had to make some tough choices during the COVID crisis and yet he remains optimistic for the future.
Priyanka Saxena Ray
The parent company of GRNconnect.com – Aman Travels Limited, has been in existence since 1993 and is dynamic and innovative in its approach as a service provider and wish to create a niche for itself in the B2B segment. GRNconnect being the flagship product has over 30K registered agents located in 108 countries across the globe & is expanding rapidly. Today as one of the largest aggregators, GRNconnect’s core competence lies in consolidating global hotel inventory and distributing it to the partner members through its portal equipped with state of the art technology.
When was GRNConnect floated and how has the growth graph been since then?
GRN was launched in 2012 and it has been growing steadily ever since.
Do you feel the purpose with which the company was fulfilled has been achieved over the years?
Yes, GRN has proved to be a very useful tool for the travel agents across the Globe. We have been able to add value in travel agent’s day to day working.
How was the year 2019 in terms of business for GRNconnect?
It was a good year as we were able to roll out a new version of GRN and it was very well accepted and in terms of sales too the year was good.
How severely has the business been affected because of COVID19?
The business has been severely damaged because of Covid-19 and it will take long time before we reach back to pre-Covid levels.
Did you had to let go of some of your staff or undertake measures such as pay cuts, etc.?
Unfortunately we had to let go of some staff and some pay cut too.
As the world slowly opens, has there been some kind of business in the last few weeks?
Yes there has been movement in few global markets.
When, in your opinion, will things go back to being what they were before COVID?
My opinion is that business will start improving towards the end of this year and by next summer season, it should be close to normal.
How are you dealing with the demands of “new normal” hotel bookings?
We are designating hotels as Safe2Stay in our portal as more and more chains are accepting the new standards of hygiene.
Is there any more information that you would like to share with us?
2020 has been one of the toughest years for travel and tourism industry. We, at GRN have felt the impact that Covid-19 has brought upon the industry and we have been amazed at the support of our partners and suppliers in their effort to assist us in getting through this period. We would like to thank all of them and appreciate their support. It is my advice to all my friends in the travel trade that this shall pass too and there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we must all strive to become a total travel management company selling all travel related products rather than specializing in one segment of the trade.
