This Palestinian Startup Is Making Travel Bookings ‘Cardless’

How many times have you failed to complete your online booking just because a credit card that you don’t have was required? Think about it. In today’s digital-driven world, how frustrating is it that the only hindrance standing between you and your dreams of exotic vacations is a little click?

Indeed, many travel platforms have sprouted up to shape the way we arrange our trips, but none of them ever succeeded in offering a viable solution to the online payment problem.

Until the idea for Yamsafer (literally “traveller”) came about.

With their offices based in Ramallah, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this startup quickly made great strides into becoming the first-ever hotel booking site to cater entirely to the Arab travel market.

Thanks to Yamsafer you can easily book a cheap accommodation in Jordan or a fancy hotel in Bahrain, without the hassle of processing a deposit fee payment.

What you need is just provide basic details on the site (name, email, phone number), and a Yamsafer employee will call you right away to confirm the reservation went smoothly.

In so doing, the company addresses a major pain point in the MENA travel industry—the persistent low rate of credit card penetratio—which has also long been a stumbling block for e-commerce in the region.

The company is the first of its kind to offer “Cardless Bookings” worldwide. Indeed, no similar service can be found on traditional travel booking platforms, and CEO Faris Zaher believes such a feature will allow Yamsafer to maintain a competitive edge over other big players out there.

Indeed, no similar service can be found on traditional travel booking platforms, and CEO Faris Zaher believes such a feature will allow Yamsafer to maintain a competitive edge over other big players out there.

In 2012, Yamsafer became the first Palestinian company to secure Venture Capital, in a $1 million round led by Sadara Ventures, the first venture capital firm targeting the Palestinian tech sector.

In 2015, the company announced a $3.5 million Series B funding round led by Global Founders Capital (GFC) and launched an application for IOS and Android devices to enable users to book hotels on the spot and make free calls directly to the team.

Another key strength of the company is its big regional focus. Yamsafer uniquely positions itself as booking site with comprehensive travel-related content in Arabic, whereby targeting a rising number of intra-regional travelers.

In Palestine, political instability, social unrest and a weak legal framework have not deterred youth from nurturing a creative spirit and entrepreneurial mindset that are today their distinctive characteristics.

Quite the contrary, the local tech community has today all it takes to be crowned next hotbed of world-changing innovators.

And by transforming the way people discover, travel and experience the Middle East, Yamsafer is contributing enormously to make it happen in the near future.

By Camilla Caraccio, IncArabia. August 22 2016. Link: <http://www.incarabia.com/this-palestinian-startup-is-making-travel-bookings-cardless/>