Welcome to Open Distribution, travel booking reimagined
We started Impala in 2017 because we realised the old technology of travel wasn’t working. The existing models stifled innovation, frustrated nearly every player in the industry and led to bad guest experiences. So much about the way we travel had changed since the dawn of the booking ecosystem, but the technology hadn’t evolved to match.
Five years later, the need to reimagine how travel works has only become more urgent. The industry is eager not just to recover from the changes brought by the pandemic, but to adapt to our present moment and truly thrive. Our team at Impala knows that this can only happen by rebuilding the infrastructure that powers travel from the ground up—which is exactly what we’re doing.
Now, with our product already enabling hotels and travel sellers to rapidly grow their businesses, and with many more players on the cusp of getting involved in this kind of distribution, we think it’s time to put a name to the category and share it with the global travel community.
Impala is leading the trend of Open Distribution—an entirely new model for selling hotel rooms.
Open Distribution breaks down the walls of bad tech, slow integration and high costs we’re so used to in hotel distribution and allows hotels and room sellers to work directly with each other to negotiate deals and reach new markets. With Open Distribution, it’s finally possible for any hotel and any room seller in the world to work together. Impala is defining and leading this new category.
Open Distribution isn’t a lofty goal or some future we’re anticipating—it describes how we’re helping hotels and room sellers right now.
Hotels can quickly gain access to new markets to attract more of the guests that work for their property. Room sellers can access the technology and inventory they need to build exciting, differentiated products. Both sides can work with each other, without anybody getting in the way—and keep more of the revenue they earn.
We’re proud to be working with some of the biggest names in travel, but our model is also enabling new startups to succeed in ways that were previously impossible. By granting these new players faster, easier and more direct access to better data, Impala has created the foundations upon which they can build their unique visions for travel, from a hotel platform for remote workers to one for design-led travel experiences.
Opening up travel means reducing everyone’s dependency on the industry’s gatekeepers, which makes innovation possible on an entirely new scale. We’re so excited to see what paradigm-shifting products might be built on top of our new infrastructure.
There’s a lot more we want to share about what Open Distribution means for hotels and how it benefits the full scope of room sellers and travel companies. Impala has launched a new website tailored to answering your questions and bringing you along on the Open Distribution journey with us. We also have a new brand identity to reflect who we are now and where we’re taking travel, but our values and our mission—to rebuild the infrastructure of travel—are staying the same.
Welcome to the world of Open Distribution, and welcome to the new Impala. We’re glad to have you here.
