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We met up with Dmitriy Alexashov, who founded Aviapoisk.kz — an aggregator for all things travel booking related

Dmitriy Alexashov

While we were in Almaty, Kazakhstan to cover Echelon Central Asia, a 2-day conference organised by e27 and Idea Lab, we also took the opportunity to interview local entrepreneurs about what they are up to. Here, we speak to Dmitriy Alexashov, Founder, Aviapoisk.kz, a flight, hotel, insurance and car rental booking site and aggregator.

Here are the edited excerpts…

Can you tell me more about what you’re doing?

My startup is in the travel segment, booking flight tickets, hotels, insurance and car rental. We started two years ago here. Our team is situated in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Moscow. We have five or six people in our team.

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We have a website and a mobile application. You can find flight tickets for any region, compare it to other ticket prices and choose the best one for you.

My target is to be Number One in Russia and Kazakhstan but, you know, now is not a very good time for travel in this segment.

Why is it not a good time for travel?

Because of the conflict in Ukraine and not-so-good situations with Turkey and Egypt. Maybe, months ago, a lot of people from Russia returned from Turkey and from Egypt. That’s why.

How do you get discounted prices from airlines and other partners?

It’s very difficult. As you know, there are low-cost airlines and genuine airlines. For low-cost, they will not produce discounted tickets but genuine airlines can do this. For example, they can sell tickets for a longer period of time. Maybe, for Christmas, all tickets are sold in September. There are a lot of agencies that do bulk purchases. There are also charter flights.

How many tickets have you sold so far?

Per day, approximately 100.

How do you make money?

These agencies and airlines give us a commission, and we also make money through advertising. We are a profitable company.

Are you looking for venture capital?

We’re not looking, but we’re ready to listen. As you know, ticketing is a very difficult market. For faster growth, we need some more money.

If you were able to wish for anything, what would you wish for?

I wish that people would travel more this Christmas.

The post This KZ startup founder wants people to travel this Christmas. Why? appeared first on e27.

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