The owner of pharmaceutical distributor FC Grand Capital is investing in a new aggregator for tourists Besttrip
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The owner of the large pharmaceutical distributor FC Grand Capital, Denis Remenyako, invested in the creation of an online service for organizing travel Besttrip. Initially, the aggregator will work as a booking system for hotels, air tickets and trains for business trips, and next year an application for independent tourists will be launched. Although the corporate segment of the travel business has high margins, creating and maintaining the service requires significant costs, experts warn. Therefore, investments in the project, according to their estimates, may exceed 500 million rubles.
The owner of FC Grand Capital Denis Remenyako registered Besttrip LLC on April 4, 2024 with the type of activity in the field of travel agencies, discovered “Kommersant” in SPARK. It also states that in March of the same year, Datauniverse LLC, founded by Mr. Remenyako, registered the Best Trip trademark, including for the classes of services of travel agencies and tour operators.
Denis Remenyako confirmed to Kommersant that a new service for organizing travel in the field of TravelTech is being developed on the basis of Besttrip. In 2024, the company plans to launch a B2B service for booking business trips, and in 2025, an application for independent tourists. Companies will be able to book hotels, air flights and train tickets for business trips in the system, and see analytics that will allow them to optimize expenses for business trips, noted FC Grand Capital. Independent tourists will have the opportunity to purchase insurance, order a transfer, and buy tours from tour operators.
The company does not disclose the amount of investment in the project. Denis Remenyako decided to invest in the tourism business against the backdrop of FC Grand Capital’s revenue growth in 2023 by 15%, to 156.6 billion rubles, according to DSM Group. According to the calculations of this agency, at the end of last year the company became the fourth pharmaceutical distributor in terms of revenue, overtaking R-Pharm for the first time.
Mr. Remenyako explains his interest in the new business by the fact that now the economic model is changing in the Russian tourism market, user preferences are moving online and new players are appearing in this segment. In addition, according to him, business tourism has been growing in recent years.
The Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) previously indicated that the turnover of the business tourism market in the country in 2023 amounted to 500–600 billion rubles. There they recorded an increase in foreign business trips of Russians by 25–30% year on year, in Russia by 17–19%. ATOR says that these data show the recovery of the segment to 2019 levels.
The head of OneTwoTrip for Business, Stepan Mastryukov, speaks of a twofold increase in the activity of business tourists by the end of 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, demand for business travel tripled year-on-year, adds Trivio representative Andrey Baturin.
Vice-President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Dmitry Gorin notes that business travel over the past four years has recovered from shocks much faster than classical tourism. According to him, up to 90% of business trips are carried out through specialized players due to the need to prepare accompanying documentation and post-payment. Kommersant’s interlocutor on the travel market suggests that margins in the B2B segment can reach 10–12%, while in B2C we are talking about 1.5–3%. Mr. Mastryukov notes that in the B2B market, large online platforms are now occupying the offline agency market. A Kommersant source on the travel market doubts that business tourism has completely switched to online. Now, according to him, the share of such bookings in the B2B segment accounts for about 30–40%, although previously this figure did not exceed 10%.
Stepan Mastryukov warns that building a new travel service from scratch is a very expensive process. Executive Director of the Union of Business Travel Agencies Pavel Vasin suggests that the minimum investment in launching a competitive product will be 500 million rubles. and will take about six months. Andrey Baturin adds that the company will need a large amount of working capital due to the postpaid model widespread in the segment. For further development in the B2C segment, the company, according to the expert, needs significant budgets for promotion. Stepan Mastryukov points to this, drawing attention to the great competition.
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