A Different Quality of Demand Rather Than Another Channel

1. You joined Holidu as a Junior Business Development Manager in March 2020, right as the pandemic hit an industry built entirely on travel, and have grown internally into Senior Team Lead for Southern Europe over six years. What from managing business development at that specific starting point still shapes how you lead your team today?

I learned to separate effort from outcome, and I have never unlearned it.

In my first week at Holidu I was at a trade fair. Walking the floor, the gaps left from the pandemic were already visible: the non-EU exhibitors simply had not come. That was the first signal, before anyone was using the word pandemic in a business meeting.

What followed was not a sales job. It was hibernation mode. We stayed extremely close to partners and guests, making sure everyone was aligned on the next step, whatever that turned out to be. But we stayed alert, because we could see the logic: if people were going to travel again, a private accommodation would beat a hotel lobby. So we were not pitching harder. We were keeping things under control and ready.

As a matter of fact, that season turned out to be a very strong one for Holidu. We caught the demand rebound before most OTAs did, precisely because we had spent the quiet months preparing rather than retreating.

The leadership habit that stuck is this: my team is hungry and wants to deliver, and sometimes circumstances simply do not allow it. I hold that in mind every time we discuss numbers. Flexibility is not a perk we introduced in 2020. It is what allows people to stay healthy enough to perform over years, not quarters.

2. Holidu’s booking platform aggregates listings from property managers across Europe to compete directly with giants like Airbnb and Booking.com for the same guest demand. On the BD side, what’s actually different about pitching Holidu to a property manager who is already distributed everywhere, versus one who has never worked with an OTA aggregator before?

The real divide is not whether they have worked with an OTA like ours. It is whether they have heard of us.

Larger PMCs usually come to us. They know Holidu, they know what high-quality bookings and OTA diversification are worth, and the conversation starts at connection logistics rather than value. The resistance comes from smaller PMs who do not know the brand yet, and their fear is operational, not commercial. Our commission sits in line with the market, so price is rarely the blocker.

From the already-distributed property managers, the objection I hear most is simply: “I don’t have time right now.” Which is the frustrating part, because with the channel manager and PMS stack most of them already run, connecting takes almost nothing from their side. Sometimes we go live even within 24 hours of sign-up with a high-quality connection. That objection is really scar tissue from other integrations that were slow and inaccurate.

The second argument is the one that changes the conversation. We bring northern European travellers who book earlier and cancel far less than the last-minute segment they are used to absorbing. So we are not asking them to add another channel to an already crowded mix targeting the same audience. We are offering a different quality of demand, which can give them back the operational time they were worried about losing.

3. You lead business development across Southern Europe, a region spanning very different regulatory environments, seasonality and host sophistication from one country to the next. What actually changes in the conversation when you’re convincing a host to list with Holidu in, say, Croatia versus Italy or France?

Less changes than the map suggests, and that surprises people.

The pain is remarkably shared. In every one of my six markets, partners are fighting some of the same battles: increasing occupancy, finding reliable cleaning staff, working out which licence number they actually need. Our contract and commercial terms are effectively the same everywhere. So the differentiator is not localisation of the offer. It is simplicity. Agencies do not have time, and keeping the collaboration frictionless is one of our strongest assets.

What genuinely varies is three things.

First, technology adoption. In Greece we meet good operators without a PMS or channel manager, and that changes the conversation entirely, because we are talking about capability before commercials.

Second, what proof they want. French partners want to hear about non-French travellers, and that is a promise we can keep. Further south, origin matters much less than guest quality.

Third, how much convincing is required. Spanish and French partners want data and process detail before committing. Portuguese and Greek partners are often the most proactive and simply want to get started. Italians start from scepticism and need quite some convincing even to engage in a conversation.

Croatia has its own pressure: one of the shortest seasons in Europe, now combined with accommodation prices climbing. That squeezes the window in which everything has to work.

4. As your remit expanded, you moved from Munich, Holidu’s headquarters, to Milan, inside the region you now oversee. What changed operationally once you were physically embedded in Southern Europe rather than directing it from HQ?

Two things improved immediately: how often I sit in front of partners, and how fast I hear about local regulation.

Face-to-face frequency is the obvious one. But the underexplained benefit is being plugged into local teams who already existed. When a rule shifts, or a tax changes, I hear it from people on the ground rather than reading it in a newsletter days or weeks later. In a region where regulation moves country by country, that lead time is commercial advantage.

The honest cost is distance from the decision centre. I am no longer in the corridor where things get discussed in Munich. Two things offset it. Holidu is genuinely flat, so information reaches me quickly, and my team keeps real independence. And I still spend two to three months a year in Munich. We often bring the whole team there, which is the best chance I get to properly catch up with colleagues from the other local offices.