Emerging Travel Group (ETG), a global travel tech company headquartered in the UAE, reached $4.8 billion in gross transaction value in 2025, marking a 30% increase over the previous year. The main driver of this growth was the company's flagship B2B platform, RateHawk, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The platform enables travel professionals to book hotels, air tickets, transfers and other travel-related services.

In 2025, RateHawk’s net booking value rose 40% compared to 2024, sustaining a decade of consistent double-digit growth. The number of partners connected to RateHawk grew 37%, surpassing 110,000 travel professionals worldwide. As an all-in-one, multi-product platform, RateHawk also saw a 33% rise in transportation bookings, with flights and transfers driving the majority of this growth.

“Over the past decade, RateHawk has scaled rapidly. Thanks to our innovative and partner-centric approach, we’ve achieved strong market fit across key regions such as Europe and the Middle East, and we continue to expand our presence in new markets, including Asia, Latin America, and North America, with both our booking platform and API solutions,” said Felix Shpilman, President and CEO of Emerging Travel Group, RateHawk’s parent company.

RateHawk’s API, providing an extensive supply of 3.2 million accommodation options to large OTAs, travel tech platforms and agency chains, experienced a 40% increase in gross bookings. The network of API partners increased by 33%, exceeding 1,400 companies, including Make My Trip, LCC Deutschland and Global Star connected in 2025.

In the GCC region, the company increased the number of travel agents connected to the platform by 12%, reaching over 9000 professionals. RateHawk’s business demonstrated a 66% increase in net booking value year-over-year.

In 2025, Emerging Travel Group continued to strengthen its role as a supply consolidator by expanding its accommodation inventory. During the year, the company integrated more than 50 new suppliers, increasing its total network to 350 accommodation providers. Overall, ETG’s total accommodation inventory marked a 23% increase compared to the previous year.

Establishing direct connections with hotels remained a key strategic focus, with the number of direct partnerships doubling year over year to reach 250,000 properties, primarily across the USA, Europe, and the Middle East. ETG further strengthened its connectivity capabilities by integrating with more platforms and channel managers, including DerbySoft Exchange, Simple Booking, and InnGenius. Accommodation providers can connect their inventory to ETG using a variety of options — through the company’s Extranet, over 80 channel managers, direct API integration or other integration platforms.

“Our supply strategy ensures both broad coverage and competitive pricing. By integrating wholesalers, suppliers, and DMCs, we are able to offer our partners accommodation options even in the most remote and exotic destinations. At the same time, prioritizing direct connections with hotel chains and independent hotels in high-demand locations allows us to provide the most competitive deals and the widest rate representation,” commented Felix Shpilman.

“On the demand side, ETG’s broad network, including RateHawk’s B2B partners and corporate clients using our business travel platform Roundtrip, enables us to provide hotels and suppliers with strong, diversified multi-channel distribution. As a result, this approach allows us to generate sustainable value for both sides of the marketplace,” added Shpilman.

To ensure a seamless booking process, the company has enhanced automation and expanded the use of AI-driven technologies. In customer support, the company has rolled out agentic AI tools trained to classify and prioritize incoming requests, determine the necessary actions, and execute routine tasks accordingly. This ensures faster resolution times while allowing human agents to focus on more complex cases.

Beyond customer support, the company is expanding the use of AI across other areas of the business, including more efficient supply aggregation and management, content localization and adaptation, and the identification and prevention of booking incidents. These AI-driven initiatives enhance operational efficiency, minimize errors, and accelerate the time to market for new products and services.

“With travel remaining a highly fragmented industry, we see AI as a game-changer for behind-the-scenes processes. Predictive, generative, and agentic AI tools are already integrated across our product, analytics and customer support teams, and we plan to expand their use further,” concluded Shpilman.

About Emerging Travel Group

Emerging Travel Group is a UAE-based online travel group founded in 2010 that operates travel brands for individual travelers, B2B travel professionals, and corporate customers in over 190 source markets.

Our products help clients book all types of travel services: more than 3.2 million hotels from over 250,000 properties contracted directly, flight tickets of 450 airlines, transfers in 150 countries, car rental, and other travel-related services.

Emerging Travel Group employs more than 3,900 people across the USA, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and South Africa in roles ranging from product and business development to specialized multilingual customer support for all our customers, whether they are trade partners, corporate travelers, or individuals simply booking their hotels online.

Press Contact
Anita Gusich,
Head of PR
pr@emergingtravel.com