Travel-tech startup RateGain furloughs employees

Homegrown travel and hotel software solutions provider RateGain has sent some of its employees on unpaid leave, citing Covid-19 induced revenue decline and business uncertainty for the next few months.

“... we made a very difficult decision and sent some of our employees on furlough with an action plan to bring them back as soon as possible,” CEO Harmeet Singh said in a statement, posted on the company’s Facebook page on Saturday.

The company declined TechCircle's request for comment on additional details on employee count, departments and office locations affected.

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To avoid laying off its employees, Singh said, the company took several other measures to cut costs, apart from the furloughs. The management team has taken salary cuts in the range of 50% to 100%. 

“To realign our cost structure to the new interim realities, we diligently negotiated with all our vendors globally, curtailed all travel expenses, terminated all sales and marketing expenses as well as froze all hires and raises,” Singh added.

Founded in 2004, RateGain provides software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based hospitality and travel technology solutions, such as revenue management decision support, electronic distribution, brand engagement, channel management, competitive rate intelligence, and price optimisation. 

The company has offices and operations spread across the United States, Europe and Asia, with as much as 50% of the clients based in the US.

The firm’s Indian parent holding, RateGain Travel Technologies, reported a 32% rise in net revenues of Rs 106.61 crore, in the financial year ended March 2019, according to VCCEdge data. Profit after tax stood at Rs 10.36 crore, up 130%.

TechCircle has reported several other workforce cuts drifting across the travel-tech sector due to Covid-19 pandemic. Early April, budget hotels aggregator Treebo offered a paid voluntary resignation scheme (PVRS) to its employees. SoftBank-backed homegrown hospitality chain OYO reportedly laid off hundreds of employees in the US across multiple divisions.

Travel and hotel booking firm Ixigo slashed employee salaries by 20-50% to avoid layoffs, while travel aggregator MakeMyTrip reportedly laid off about 400 employees.