With 200 employees and a presence in eleven countries (Germany, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, the United States, and Spain) and seven different languages, the German company Viajeros Piratas (HolidayPiratesinternationally) represents an interesting proposal for the ultra-competitive online travel market.
The idea is simple: expert “travel-hunters” from the ViajerosPiratas team constantly search the web using various sources in search of the best deals. is led in Spain by two young entrepreneurs and passionate about travel, Pablo Santaella and Alvaro Yepez, who work from Seville with a team of 5
professionals. To find out a little more in detail how they are doing, and what their future plans are, we have spoken with Pablo Santaella, Head of Market in Pirate Voyagers.
Interview with Pablo Santaella, Pirate Travelers
Álvaro Yépez and you are the visible face of Viajeros Piratas in Spain. How did you get into the project?
My partner and I were a couple of passionate about travel that we had known the HolidayPirates group for a long time and believed that a similar initiative would be very successful in Spain. Thus, we directly contacted the founders of the company in Germany and offered them to implement the model in Spain.
How does the business model work? How is Pirate Travelers monetized?
Our model is based on the conversion of the offers that we select and publish, that is, from the sales we generate to travel agencies. In addition, we have agreements with several of them, which notify us when they put their best offers up for sale. We do not sell trips, we link to those portals that do. Our job is to select only the best for quality and price.
How many clients are you having in this first year?
Our travel offers have been visited by more than 1.3 million people a month during the first year.
How is the profile of your clients? Is there any difference between your clients in Spain and the rest of the world?
In Spain, our main market is made up of a young public, between 25 and 40 years of ageaccustomed to the use of new technologies and whose majority are women, although, of course, we try to reach the greatest number of people regardless of their age or sex.
The main difference that we see with respect to the public of other markets lies in the advance at the time of reservation. As a rule, the Spanish public waits until the last minute to book their holidays.
What trips are the most “popular”?
There are places that never go out of style, like the main beach destinations in Spain (Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Costa del Sol…), as well as the best-known European cities such as Paris, London or Rome. On the other hand, at this time, Mauritius and the Maldives they are experiencing a boom compared to recent times due to the opening of direct routes from Spain.
Throughout this time, you will surely have carried out many different digital marketing actions. What has worked better for you and what has worked worse for you?
There are no guarantees of success, but in our experience, the most successful actions have been those in which we have targeted our followers through personalized channels. For example, we have alerts via WhatsAppthrough which we directly reach more than 900,000 potentially interested users around the world.
On the other hand, those actions that have had less satisfactory results have been those in which we have not previously carried out a prior filter based on the preferences of our followers.
Let’s do a bit of futurology: what Pirate Traveler headline would you like to see in Marketing4eCommerce in a year?
ViajerosPiratas, the largest travel website in Spain.
And a little more difficult: How do you imagine eCommerce will evolve between now and 2020? How will technologies, consumer habits, etc. change?
I think it will be the offers that will go to the user instead of the user having to look for them. The eCommerce companies that will manage to lead the market will be those able to fully adapt to the useroffering you the offers that best suit your needs and preferences.
quick quiz
- What is the first social network you open in the day? Facebook
- iOS or Android? Android
- App or website? apps
- In which eCommerce and how long ago did you make your last online purchase? Amazon, two days ago.
- What was it? A dartboard for the office
- Last book read? (worth ebooks) “100 miles from Manhattan” by Guillermo Fesser
- Recommend us a fiction series: stranger things
- What website have you seen lately that has surprised you for good?
- What is your favorite thing to do that has nothing to do with digital? To travel
- Let’s spin a magic chain: Which acquaintance of yours (from another company) do you think we should interview? Why? Paco Ortiz, from For the illusion that he transmits in all the projects he undertakes
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