A data management specialist for the travel sector is eyeing overseas expansion as it aims to hit £1m revenues in 2020.
Travelogix, which was established in 2011 by chief executive Chris Lewis and chief technology officer Gary Jones, said 2020 will be a ‘pivotal year’ for the business as it launches with clients in South Africa, the US and South East Asia.
The Warrington-headquartered company offers delivery and data management software, reporting tools and other solutions for travel management companies (TMCs) and their clients, via a suite of products including Analytix, DataValet and DataShare.
Chris said: “We’ve had a lot of interest from firms across the globe. We’ve got clients in Australia and New Zealand and we’re looking to launch in Singapore in January and South Africa in April.
“The US is also a huge market for us. There’s more competition but far more opportunities to grow the business and we’re currently looking for the right talent out there to take the business into new markets."
He added: "Travelogix offers a smart solution for travel management companies allowing clients to access real-time data and analyse that data easily.
“Around the globe and especially in the US, TMCs are still using a more traditional method to extract data, and we want to modernise the way they do things.”
Chris and Gary launched the business following 30 years working for firms in the corporate travel and business travel software arena.
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Said Chris: “At the time we came up with this idea I was a sales manager at a software supplier who developed and implemented a mid back office and invoice system within travel management companies.
“One of the big things at the time was talk about was big data and how to capture that.
"Historically with travel data you have a lot of data on a lot of different systems from different flight and rail booking platforms to invoicing systems.
"Traditionally travel management companies had a team of people who would pull all that data out manually from these platforms and try to mesh them together into a spreadsheet effectively.
“The issue you had there is that the moment you present that data to clients it’s out of date and not always reliable.
“So we had a desire to automate all that data from all those platforms, normalise it through a micro process that we have and then push it into an environment where the travel or account manager would be able to log into the system and see that data live.
"So from the second a booking is made it would automatically flow into the platform without any manual intervention.”
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In 2016 the company sold a 51 per cent stake to Sweden based Safeture to strengthen its offer as a one-stop-shop to meet the growing needs in the personal security and travel industry and reinforce the Safeture’s in-house knowledge of processing travel data.
The investment allowed Travelogix to propel the business bolstering its sales and operational team as well as a team of developers to 11 staff.
Revenues also grew from £200,000 with plans to hit its first £1m next year.
In September, Travelogix took the decision to complete an MBO two years after the acquisition.
A team led by Chris bought back the controlling share in the company from Safeture to allow the business to be more responsive to client demand and take advantage of new opportunities.
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Chris said: “The investment propelled the business but because it was a PLC we couldn’t be as entrepreneurial as we wanted and breaking away from them has massively allowed us to be entrepreneurial.
“It means we are releasing a new platform which we have been developing for the last 18 months in April which we couldn’t have done as easily as part of a PLC.
“We can react to the market and our customer demands much more quickly and this agility has given us the room to grow next year.”