Busbud, a global ground travel booking platform, has announced the acquisition of Ratality, a South Africa-based award-winning provider of revenue management optimization software for ground travel operators, for an undisclosed amount.
Busbud will integrate Ratality's unique expertise to enhance its Business Suite with game-changing features such as advanced demand forecasting, dynamic pricing, fleet and driver management, as well as solutions for the charter and rental industry. This acquisition will also enable Busbud to broaden its value proposition to become a complete solution provider for operators worldwide, building upon an existing partnership between the companies and extending Busbud’s reach across Africa.
Busbud Business Suite offers B2B business services to ground travel operators to help manage their operations more efficiently and expand their sales to the online market. The suite is used by over 350 partners worldwide and has powered hundreds of millions of tickets worldwide to date.
The platform supports a multitude of payment and language options and has been configured in 16 countries, acting as a trusted partner for many operators, including four of the top five in South Africa. The platform is flexible enough to support larger and smaller operators alike.
Operators can also opt-in to distribute inventory to worldwide marketplaces in the Busbud Group's network, such as Busbud (global), Buson (Brazil), Recorrido (Chile), as well as other third-party marketplaces worldwide that attract hundreds of millions of visitors annually.
Commenting on the acquisition, Arend de Waal, CEO and co-founder of Ratality, said, “Uniting with Busbud expands the reach of our platform to bus operators around the world. Our innovative revenue management solutions generate immediate ROI for our partners and have already been proven in other travel sectors, like airlines. Overall, this combination unlocks untapped potential for bus operators, maximizing revenue and operational efficiency.”
LP Maurice, CEO and co-founder of Busbud, added, “This is a very special partnership that will add a key missing piece to our growing B2B offering. We've heard first-hand from ground travel operators about the tangible results they've achieved by using rationality to generate more revenue for their businesses. We were extremely impressed by the technology and capabilities of their platform. It just really made sense to bring Ratality's team of revenue management experts on board and integrate these features further into our core B2B platform. We wanted these capabilities to be in the hands of all of our operator partners worldwide. We have been partnered with ground travel operators for more than a decade and thrive on their success. We are excited to keep innovating together with Ratality for years to come for the benefit of our operator partners.”.
The addition of revenue management capabilities to the Business Suite is another major step towards offering a best-in-class software platform tailored to the unique needs of ground travel operators.
Ratality's revenue management capabilities unlock a whole new level of efficiency and economics for operator partners.
One of Ratality's customers, a large South African-based ground travel operator, saw a major impact on sales and efficiency: 73% more passengers, a 76% improvement in seat factor (SF%), a 37% improvement in revenue, and a 32% increase in revenue per kilometer (RPK). This impact happened only over several months, from November 2023 to February 2024.
The operator also saw two other key benefits: a positive shift in its booking window as a result of dynamic pricing strategies that made lower prices available for customers booking earlier. And improved operational efficiency, with 98% overall forecasting accuracy due to accurate advanced demand forecasting.
