Why did your group recently change its name to S4BT?
Ziad Minkara - The name CDS Groupe, with its long history and strong positioning in the hotel sector, was already well known in France. But the strategy that we set ourselves in 2020, before Covid, is on a European scale. Hence the acquisition of Corporate Rates Club (CRC) in Germany, then SIAP in Italy, following on from the acquisition of Rydoo Travel, which was behind the launch of the Goelett solution. We are keeping all these very strong brands in each of these countries, but under the umbrella of a European group under the global identity S4BT, Solutions for Business Travel. A very clear, very institutional name, which reflects our values: agility, integrity and excellence. On the other hand, all our contracts are pooled. Suppliers are very happy because, with one operator, they can cover the whole of Europe and reach hotel chains, OTAs, GDSs, car hire companies, airlines and trains.
Let's take a closer look at the reasons for this external growth. How is S4BT positioned today?
Z.M. - We have an extremely clear vision of a global business travel market divided into three, where the players and needs are not the same. In the United States, the market essentially revolves around GDSs, major hotel groups, loyalty programmes and cards. This is a separate market, where we have seen players like Navan come in and take market share with a solution that combines reservations, expense management and cash management. At the same time, in Asia, all the systems are different, from GDS to payment. And then there's Europe, consolidated around the European Union, but with different tax systems and rules in different countries, and different transport habits depending on the extent to which trains are used. Based on this observation, we decided to build a group with a European dimension so that we could serve major accounts based on the continent, but with a global travel spend.
Now is the time for consolidation in the business travel sector. How is S4BT positioning itself in the market today as a result?
Z.M. - This consolidation is necessary if we are to continue to invest in innovation. We have become an extremely strong group, with R&D teams that are starting to work in a complementary way, in other words, without doing away with what already exists, but building on this solid base. Today, we have three target markets, supported by three back offices: a major one in Poland for the development of Goelett, another in Croatia for the backup of the German market and the last one in Romania, for Italy. We now have six countries in which we are extremely well positioned.
There's still one major European country to conquer: the United Kingdom. What are your ambitions there?
Z.M. - An acquisition is imminent. As always with the UK, it's a very different market, with different contracts and rights. It's a highly intermediated, highly structured market, a bit American-style, with chain hotels, very strong GDSs and loyalty programmes. Once we cover all these major countries, we could become the key operator for American or Asian groups established in Europe. Our goal over the next four or five years is to build this leading European group with solutions for both the corporate market and TMCs, by not pitting anyone against anyone else and by building value together.
What expertise have these acquisitions brought you?
Z.M. - In Germany, Corporate Rates Club is the second-largest player in this market, with a strong presence in the DACH region. They do exactly the same thing as CDS through a hotel reservation platform. But with an extremely interesting addition: invoice capture, as well as VAT isolation and collection, as the German market is eligible for this. Then we turned our attention to Italy, an extremely complicated market with twice as many agencies as in France, a highly fragmented hotel industry, and without the domination of a major hotel group as we have here. We acquired SIAP. SIAP is an ERP originally designed to manage travel agencies, and has developed its B4B self-booking tool, which has become the online booking tool for almost all agencies, equivalent to that of Goelett. SIAP has also turned to artificial intelligence with a virtual agent, called Nora, for conversational chat with business travellers, and which can make reservations in line with travel policy.
Are these complementary building blocks already up and running for your customers?
Z.M. - We're involved in all areas: hotel booking tool, self-booking tool, ERP. In addition to a call centre, under the Methodica brand, which can answer incoming calls from travellers in their language - French, Italian, German or English by default for the global service - and which also offers support to travel agencies for booking changes, invoice collection, etc. So we have all the building blocks and customers can choose the ones they need. We also cover payment through our alliance with AirPlus. But we can also adapt and integrate our customers' payment methods, whether American Express or Citi. Everything we do is never exclusive; we are agnostic. We operate on all the online booking tools, whether KDS, Concur or Cytric, in addition to our Goelett solution, which is aimed more at mid-scale agencies serving the French domestic market.
Unlike other players in the hotel reservation market, why are travel agencies essential partners for S4BT?
Z.M. - Historically, our needs were focused on the corporate market, but today 55% of our sales go through travel agencies, compared with 45% for the corporate market. We have a hotel reservation volume of €650 million, more than half of which is handled by our distribution partners, such as Havas Voyages, Selectour, VoyageExpert and Reed&McKay. So we are a solutions integrator, both for large corporate accounts that want their own tools with a tailor-made operator, and also for travel agencies, to equip them so that they can have a differentiating offer compared with players like Navan.
What are you offering them?
Z.M. - We have marketplaces all over the map. We have a major platform for integrating rail services with Trainline and Rail Europe, both global operators for Goelett. So a travel agency can build its offer with the SNCF for national customers, but if they have customers with international profiles like VoyageExpert, they can use Trainline or Rail Europe. In the same way, we also have a large marketplace for air travel, based around the GDSs, but we now have all the NDCs, drawing in particular on the expertise of the Amadeus NDCXs. Thanks to our strategic partnership with Amadeus, we cover the historical GDS part, on the NDC part, but also the car part with Amadeus Cars, which is being tested by Havas, and the hotel part with Amadeus Value Hotel. On the hotel side, we also have a very strong partnership with Booking, of which we are one of the preferred partners. This is a 10-year partnership through which we are resellers for Booking, even though they no longer wish to distribute their offer directly to all agencies, but rather through intermediaries.
What are S4BT's main priorities today?
Z.M. - The challenge today is to meet the most pressing needs: paperless invoicing, which is due to arrive in September 2026, and we are in the process of building this on SIAP's technology. This power will enable us to be ready for the revolution in electronic invoicing in France, which will take place in September 2026. We know the business of dematerialised invoicing thanks to SIAP, and that of VAT recovery thanks to CRC. We hear a lot in France about recovering VAT, but in reality, it's not recoverable on the hosting side, whereas it is elsewhere. What is possible in France is to get information about VAT, and then you work with a service provider to recover it. But that will come. Another key issue is artificial intelligence. There's a lot of talk about UX, user experience, but I think that war is already almost over. Tomorrow, we'll really be into intelligent conversational chat, and we have this expertise thanks to SIAP and its Nora agent. Finally, supporting our customers in their decarbonisation plans, without pitting business travel against decarbonisation. One out of every four bookings is now made at hotels with a quality label.
