Szallas Group acquires Litoralul Romanesc

2024 has brought a huge success to the operation of Szallas Group: we have acquired an impressive 80% stake in Creative Eye SRL, the Romanian company behind the travel platform Litoralulromanesc.ro, that offers several hundred accommodations located along the Black Sea coastline in Romania and had a 45 million euros total value of bookings in 2023, generating 3 million euros of EBITDA during this period.

With this strategic move, Travelminit.ro will be able to widen its inventory to meet the needs of those who are interested in leisure trips as well as vacation getaways to Romanian seaside resorts: almost the entire range of hotels along the Romanian coast will be available to the guests of Szallas Group from the summer of 2025.

The integration not only solidifies our position in the market but also underscores our commitment to expanding our footprint in Central and Eastern Europe. With this union, we’re not just merging businesses; we’re blending expertise, resources, and passion to create something truly extraordinary. 

“The acquisition of Litoralulromanesc.ro is a milestone in our development in this country. It is a combination of two businesses that operate in tourism but have different yet complementary characteristics. Travelminit focuses on leisure tourism getaways to smaller inland accommodations, while Litoralul Romanesc is the country’s leader in vacation getaways to Romanian seaside resorts. Together, we will be able to offer our customers a comprehensive travel offer.” – says Ferenc Rigó, CEO of Szallas Group. With this 16.8 million euros worth of deal, Szallas Group will be able to cover 330 hotels out of the 380 on the Romanian seaside. 

The deal have been greatly supported by the acquisition team of Wirtualna Polska Holding, owner of Szallas Group. Aleksander Kusz, VP E-commerce at WP also added: “I am very pleased that Szallas Group’s first acquisition, following its takeover by WP Group, is in Romania, a country where we believe the growth of travel services will be the fastest. We believe that, like the Romanian economy as a whole, the travel market will also soon record very dynamic growth, catching up with comparable countries.” 

“Our tech expertise, business model and potential proved to be very successful and have been observed on the European market by Szallas Group, backed by Wirtualna Polska Holding. They are committed to invest in Creative Eye to further develop the company and, together with Travelminit, to attain a market leader position in Romania. Following this investment, Litoralulromanesc.ro will be able to provide new solutions to serve customers and grow exponentially”, adds Ionut Nedea, founder and CEO of Creative Eye. ”We are pursuing a new level of development of Litoralulromanesc.ro, enhancing our commitment to customers and having a bold perspective on the future, both on the local market and in the region”.

In cooperation with the team of 50 passionate experts at Litoralul Romanesc, we will instantly start to prepare for 2025 summer, which will be our very first joint great seaside sales season.

The transaction value of the 80% stake in Creative Eye SRL is EUR 16.8 million adjusted for net cash as at the closing date. As part of the deal, Szallas Group also agreed to acquire the remaining 20% stake in 2025, after the approval of the 2024 financial statements. The acquisition value of the 20% stake will be determined based on the mechanism established in the purchase agreement.

From left to right: Ferenc Rigó (Szallas Group CEO), Ionut Nedea (founder and CEO of Creative Eye SRL), Adam Rogaliński (VP Corporate Development, Wirtualna Polska Holding), Jakub Moczulski (Investment Manager, Wirtualna Polska Holding)

From left to right: Ionut Nedea (founder and CEO of Creative Eye SRL), Ferenc Rigó (Szallas Group CEO)

Szallas Expedition, the first job shadowing program of Szallas Group

In April, Szallas Group implemented its first international job shadowing program, where participating colleagues had the opportunity to spend an entire workday with a Group Management member of their choice.

The goal of this international program was to provide colleagues with insight into how the Group Management daily work looks like, in order to implement the strategic vision of Szallas Group through short but intensive interactions. The applicants participated in leaders’ meetings, learned about their career paths and motivations, and during shared breakfasts and lunches, they also discussed their own plans and future ambitions.

„The job shadowing day was a challenge as a leader as well, because we received very bold questions about both the company’s strategic goals and our personal ambitions and career paths.” highlights Krisztina Agárdi, Group HR & Communication Director of Szallas, and one of the hosting participants of the program.

According to the feedback, colleagues also enjoyed this intense day, which jolted them out of their daily routines and provided forward-looking experiences in terms of both the company’s vision and their personal career paths. Especially if they had the chance to visit another country or office as part of the program.

Learn more about the feedback of the participants!

We are looking for a Chief Online Marketing Director!

As a group of leading digital travel products from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, Szallas Group is a multi-product travel platform in the Central and Eastern European region. Following a “local-to-local” strategy, the group is the market leader in the technology- and customer-driven Central and Eastern European online travel agency market with its 11 online travel products, more than 80,000 bookable accommodation partners, and a team of more than 500 people, being part of Wirtualna Polska’s travel portfolio since late 2022.

How could the Chief Online Marketing Director help Szallas’s growth?

  • Dig deep into understanding our customers with the help of our data team.
  • Evangelising Szallas in terms of Lifetime Value approach and customer retention.
  • Building cutting edge online marketing funnels incorporating latest technology.
  • Unlocking the power of marketing automation.
  • Optimizing our campaigns for the most relevant KPIs.
  • Importing latest trends and technologies into the organization.

Expectations

Professional

  • 10+ years of experience in digital marketing
  • Hands on experience in ecommerce (insights in travel sector are welcome)
  • Hands on experience with marketing automation tools
  • P&L responsibility of 10+ mEUR/year
  • Visionary approach, happy to build systems from scratch

Leadership

  • C-suit level 3+ years
  • empowering leadership for an international team of 6-10 people
  • great communication skills to evangelize group management and to sell online marketing vision to owners

Skills

  • strategic and analytical thinking
  • absolute costumer focus
  • high level project management skills

Way of working

  • attending Budapest headquarters on a regular basis, at least monthly
  • ENG as lingua franca
  • international, especially CEE experience
  • transparent, agile approach

What we offer?

  • a potential growth success story of travel sector in the region
  • a great international team of dedicated professionals
  • a motivating bonus system
  • membership in the ESOP program

How to apply?

Please send your CV and motivation letter to Krisztina Agárdi at krisztina.agardi@szallas.hu.

The application process will include test tasks and multiple interviews.

International finance team

Szallas Group is merging its financial teams in Hungary/Croatia and Romania, thereby eliminating the independent HU/CRO CFO position, and the HU/CRO/RO CFO position will be filled by Norbert Szilveszter, CFO of Travelminit, based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, who will continue to work in close cooperation with Gerald Grace, Group CFO of Szallas.

Ákos Lapsánszky has been supporting the products of Szallas.hu Zrt. for 11 years in a wide variety of financial positions: he led the audit process with all Big 4 companies, he was an accountant, controller, finance manager, then from September 2022, he led the international Hungarian/Polish/Croatian operation as CFO, with a team of twenty people.

Ákos, thank you very much for the amount of energy you put into our smooth and compliant operation! We wish you the best of luck on your next career move!

Norbert, welcome on board in your new position! Norbert is an economist with a degree in accounting and came to Travelminit in 2019, after spending several years at multinational companies. He has been CFO of Travelminit since January 2022. Norbert, we wish you the best to make the financial processes of our products operating on a unified platform even more efficient!