Sweden’s long, dark winters are an impetus for the nation’s people to leave their homeland in search of sun. Sembo, part of one of Sweden’s largest travel corporations, is meeting the needs of Swedes to explore the world - and they do it rather differently to their competitors.

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For Patrik Hägne, CTO at Sembo, travel is about combining all the things that the holidaymaker needs:

“When low cost airlines came around, Sembo were able to package flights with our hotels, finding new destinations for our customers. We do the same for our parent companies, where we are packaging their ferries together with the hotels.”

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The company may be aware of its traditions, but Andreas Elmgren, General Manager at Sembo, says that the technology is always trying to stay one step ahead:

“Sembo has always been a forerunner when it comes to technology. From 1998, our whole inventory was bookable online. We were one of the first travel companies in the world to have a dynamic package booking tool.”

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For Patrik Hägne, this means that Sembo can develop new functions for customers:

“We are building a one stop shop for travel. Our customers will dream and be inspired by travel.”

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Christine Nielsen, Head of Sales and Marketing at Sembo says that this level of choice is crucial for meeting the needs of a diverse customer base:

“We want to give customers a platform where they can choose all between all the destinations in the world. They can choose their transport and book the attractions they want to visit. We want to give them more than they expect and have everything in one place, so they should be able to buy everything all at once. It should be easy for the customer to get an overview of the whole trip all at once and only have one point of contact.”

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Nielsen says that although it is early days for the platform, the attraction of being part of it is clear for their partners:

“Some local partnerships don't have the funds to market their products to the range of customers that we do. By working with us and selling their product through our new platform, they're able to reach a bigger audience and get new customers into their own local businesses.”

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Andreas Elmgren says that technology is the defining factor that makes travel accessible to more people:

“It’s so easy today to book a flight ticket or a hotel online but it’s complex when you want to book maybe two different destinations with transportation and perhaps an activity. All of a sudden, you’ve got 15 different tabs browsing different websites and a spreadsheet to structure your whole trip. That's not really what customers want today. With our trip planning tool, you can book everything with one click.”

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One of the challenges of achieving this goal is that Sembo needs a huge amount of data to forecast prices over time and ensure that the company remains competitive without running a loss. Patrik Hägne explains:

“These are very complex trips to put together and it's unfeasible for us to go and send requests to all our suppliers for every single date. We want this to be instant. When you, as a customer say, I want to go to Paris and then I want to go to Amsterdam, we want to have the prices for you right there. This kind of performance is a huge challenge but we have some very smart people working on solving that.”

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One of those smart people is Felicia Palmkvist, Data Analyst at Sembo. She says that for all the data, it is important not to lose sight of what the customer values the most:

“I haven't met one single person who doesn't have travel on their bucket list at Sembo. I get to build recommendation engines so that you can find the best trips. I get to predict availability and pricing of hotels, enabling our customers to have their dream journeys. There is an underlying trust between all colleagues and between managers and employees at Sembo. What combines and unites us is this excitement and eagerness that we are building something new that our customers need and have been wanting for a really long time.”

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Andreas Elmgren, believes that travel will only become easier and more enjoyable:

“People want to travel more than ever, and we want to take away the frustration. The booking and planning part should be as enjoyable as the holiday itself. And when we launch the platform globally, everyone can experience that.”