Event: 2020 Phocuswright Conference
Product: HalalBooking
HQ: London, U.K.
Principal(s): Elnur Seyidli, CEO; Enver Cebi COO; Emin Hasanov, CTO; Ufuk Secgin, CMO; Agil Aliyev; CFO
Funding: No VC capital – profit-funded organic growth since founding (only $2mln angel investment in Q4’2019)
Product Description: The world's #1 website for millions of halal-conscious families to search for hotels by special needs such as availability of halal food, no-alcohol arrangements, and pool, beach or spa facilities for ladies or for private family use, or mixed-gender facilities with modest swimwear allowed.
The website caters for full customer journey of a halal-conscious traveler:
- filter hotels by halalness;
- book a hotel with halal preferences;
- send stay requests to hotel to enhance halal-friendliness experience;
- submit customer reviews for future halal travelers to read.
Business Model: Standard OTA model, except that in addition to a standard OTA, we collect additional unique data about hotels, i.e. highly granular unique data about halal-friendliness and family-friendliness of food, no alcohol, pool, beach and spa services. We augment this unique halalness data with standard OTA data, which we obtain via APIs like Expedia/Hotelbeds/etc, and make hotels searchable for our halal-conscious customers by their halal needs.
Competitors: Standard OTAs, who do not have the “search by halal needs” functionality (there are many small local travel agencies with halal focus but we are the only global "halal travel" OTA)
Competitive Edge: The world's #1 website for millions of halal-conscious families to search for hotels by special needs such as availability of halal food, no-alcohol arrangements, and pool, beach or spa facilities for ladies or for private family use, or mixed-gender facilities with modest swimwear allowed.
Market Opportunity: TAM: $60 Billion. Calculated from:
- Annual Muslim traveler spend: $230B;
- Portion of fully halal-conscious and partially halal-conscious travelers 30-50% = $90B;
- Portion of Accommodation spend 1/3 = $30B; Portion of T&A spend 1/3 = $30B;
- TAM: Accommodation $30B (current focus) + T&A $30B (future focus) = $60B in total.
Early Customers: Halal-conscious family with 2-3 kids from Northern Europe, searching for a halal-friendly summer beach holiday in the Mediterranean.
Contact: Elnur Seyidli, CEO & Founder; elnur@halalbooking.com
