In May 2022, CDS Groupe officially acquired the travel branch of Rydoo. Three months later, the teams were ready to reveal the new identity of this unit. Ziad Minkara, co-founder and CEO of CDS Group, accompanied by Pierre Mesnage, in charge of managing the new division, presented the new brand to its partners and clients.
CDS has been working for 20 years in the business travel sector and especially in the hotel industry. In the face of the trials that our industry has gone through, our work, our courage and our optimism have enabled us to emerge stronger.
We are here to say that we are going to continue with this mission to position a leading French player in terms of business travel and one that cannot be ignored in this market. In business travel there are few players, 3 GDSs, 2 OTAs as well as 3 HPTs and CDSs including us.
We are agile, we have our ethics, our transparency and our performance. The travel branch of Rydoo travel and expense was based on hotel technology, so it was only natural for us to join forces. The deal was done quickly, we met at the end of 2021, signed at the end of the first quarter of 2022 and on 19 July we were working with the teams.
This acquisition is in line with our strategy to continue to develop on the French market and to support our travel agency partners who need technologies to develop in the face of new non-European entrants. We are here to invest, to capitalise. We are focused on value synergies.
The search for this new brand has been an extremely interesting and rewarding challenge, especially in a month and a half. This is the first time the two teams have worked together and I congratulate them. In this creation process we thought about capitalising on the history of the Rydoo travel brand, we didn't want to forget where this brand and this name came from. We thought about this with Pierre Mesnage.
We have over 1 million users of the platform. Our ambition is to position ourselves on new markets such as Southern Europe, England, Eastern Europe and the German market.
CDS will remain the hotel booking tool for the corporate market, agnostic and integrated regardless of the SBT. We are now integrated on all SBTs.
Goelett will be a solution to accompany travel agencies, to make acquisitions and to grow in the segments they have decided to position themselves in.
To sum up our ambition: "Strength in numbers" is the national motto of Belgium, Bulgaria, Malaysia and many other countries. Other more literary formulations echo it, notably Jean de la Fontaine who said: All power is weak unless it is united. It is indeed by allying ourselves that we are stronger. CDS by integrating Rydoo sets in motion a mechanical action and Goelett takes off. The strength of the professional association of the two brands, just like the strength of a couple, lies in knowing and getting to know each other. Knowledge of the teams, partners and customers.
So we are going on tour to meet these partners and customers.
