Ibtikar Fund announces its recent investment in Safra, a Ramallah-based fully integrated travel platform designed for professional travel agents in the MENA.
The platform Safra is linked to multiple travel service providers which in turn allows travel agents to receive the best offers, and book travel packages for their clients, such as flights, accommodations, activities, and airport transfers – all that from one platform.
Safra’s CEO, Thaer Samara decided to launch the platform after working with various regional travel companies and noticed how inefficient and time consuming it was. “We set out to build a platform that not only offers them better prices, but that makes the process seamless through great user experience and design,” he said.
On the other hand, Habib Hazzan, Managing General Partner of Ibtikar Fund talks about the importance of the investment stating the travel industry in the MENA region is multi-billion industry and that travelers from the GCC have spent more than $90B in 2017 through travel agencies, and yet it remains “small and fragmented”.
“We believe Safra has the ability to bring some efficiency to our Arab travel industry and create win-win situations for travel agents and end consumers,” Habib said.
The amount of the investment wasn’t disclosed, but Safra mentions that they’ll be using the investment to expand their reach throughout the Arab world.