Regiondo Quietly Acquired by Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1

The entertainment conglomerate’s deeper involvement in tours, activities, and attractions.

It may seem strange that a company that owns popular German TV stations and a “modern online shop for classy eroticism products” alike would be involved in the tours, activities and attractions business. But the German media conglomerate ProSiebenSat.1 Group has grown increasingly interested in the fastest-growing sector of travel: the in-destination industry. 

Since 2015 ProSieben owned the online resellers mydays and Jochen Schweizer as wholly-owned subsidiaries. Mid-2019, ProSieben quietly acquired the Munich-based reservation technology company Regiondo.

Curiously, the acquisition has largely been kept under the radar. 

The first public mention was during a Q2 earnings call in August 2019, when ProSieben CFO Rainer Beaujean told stakeholders, “We bought Regiondo, which is an important component of taking our Experience business to the next level,” he said. “Experiences are one of the fastest-growing and mostly highly valued sectors globally and we have a pole position and we want to be the ones that enable people in Germany at base to book any experience they want, anywhere and at any point in time and Regiondo is adding very important capabilities for us to do so.”

According to Yann Maurer, COO of Regiondo, the reservation tech company had been working with ProSieben since 2016, partly because local German attractions and activities such as amusement parks, had great success advertising their product on ProSieben’s TV channels, which reach a combined 45 million households. 

In early 2018, ProSieben teamed up with the global growth equity firm General Atlantic to launch a commerce arm of the business called NuCom, which now controls mydays, Jochen Schweizer, and the aforementioned erotic products site, Amorelie. (For the record, NuCom also owns the U.S.-owned dating site eharmony.)

Maurer says the development of NuCom laid the foundation for Regiondo’s acquisition. 

Maintaining Independence 

As with other OTAs that have acquired reservation tech systems, such as booking.com’s purchase of FareHarbor and TripAdvisor’s acquisition of Bokun, concerns about res tech independence arise—particularly around operator and traveler data privacy.

ProSieben is not an OTA … but the company owns two. 

Maurer and Regiondo CEO Oliver Nützel claim data sharing with ProSieben, NuCom, mydays or Jochen Schweizer is not the plan.

“There’s nothing intended in this direction as is fairly not interested. That’s not relevant to them. Independence is a very important value for Regiondo. We have independence and neutrality in our core values that we are willing to work with any sales channel and any supplier who sees fit our technology.” Maurer and Nützel add that Germany’s data privacy laws are especially strict, and they can’t even view end-consumer data in their system. The law requires that it be encrypted.

With ProSieben’s acquisition, Maurer and Nützel are most excited about the long-term investment Regiondo will be able to make in the development and maintenance of their platform’s technology to serve their 8,000 suppliers across 42 countries. 

We don’t yet know how much ProSieben paid for Regiondo. But Maurer and Nützel say ProSieben CEO Max Conze will likely disclose this information Q4 of 2019, as the company is publicly traded. Stay tuned on arival.travel for updates.