Serko Limited, known as Serko, is a

travel management Corporate travel management is the function of managing a company’s strategic approach to travel (travel policy), the negotiations with all vendors, day-to-day operation of the corporate travel program, traveler safety and security, credit-car ...

and expense technology company headquartered in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. Serko was publicly listed on the

New Zealand Stock Exchange New Zealand's Exchange (), known commonly as the NZX, is the national stock exchange for New Zealand and a publicly owned company. NZX is the parent company of Smartshares, and Wealth Technologies. , the NZX had a total of 179 listed securiti ...

in June 2014 and on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2018 under the ticker code SKO. In October 2019,

Booking Holdings Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines inclu ...

purchased 4.7% as part of a partnership deal. In 2020 Serko won the New Zealand High-Tech Awards, winning company of the year.

History

Serko was founded in 2007 by Darrin Grafton and Robert Shaw, based on a previous business idea. In 2012 Serko received a $2.3 million NZD grant from Callaghan Innovation, the R&D investment arm of the

New Zealand Government The New Zealand Government () is the central government through which political authority is exercised in New Zealand. As in most other parliamentary democracies, the term "Government" refers chiefly to the executive branch, and more specifica ...

, and commenced an international expansion, opening a development office in

Xi'an, China Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

. Serko was subsequently listed on the New Zealand Stock Market in 2014. With the new capital raising, Serko purchased Incharge, an expense provider in 2014, and Arnold Travel Technology in 2015 from

Expedia Group Expedia Group, Inc. is an American travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, C ...

. In 2018 Serko launched into the North America market and purchased InterplX in 2019. In 2019, Booking Holdings purchased 4.7% of Serko through a capital raising of $17.5 million NZD, as part of its Booking for Business expansion plans In 2024, Serko announced that it had agreed to buy corporate travel booking platform, GetThere, from

Sabre A sabre or saber ( ) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the Early Modern warfare, early modern and Napoleonic period, Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such a ...

for USD $12M. On 6 January 2025, Serko announced that they had completed the transaction with Sabre with CEO, Darrin Grafton, adding “we are investing USD $100 million over the next three years to advance our platform technology to build the travel platform of the future. In time, this platform will power all of Serko’s products, including GetThere, Zeno and Booking.com for Business with data and AI built in to help you take advantage of emerging technology capabilities.”

COVID-19 challenges

Serko was one of the first NZX-listed companies to issue a

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

related profit warning in February 2020, well before other key market players and other travel technology companies, causing a 13% drop in their share price immediately following the warning. In the following months Serko announced its worst annual performance in company history with a net loss of $29.4m and revenue halving to $12.4m. Due to the uncertainty, the company conducted a capital raising of $55 million on the market which was oversubscribed. Following a government response to COVID-19 which created normal domestic conditions in New Zealand and the establishment of the Trans-Tasman bubble, Serko returned to pre-covid transaction levels in March 2021, and issued guidance to the market in May 2021 that it expects to make complete recovery by March 2023.

Partnerships

Serko's main partnerships are with the Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) and

. Serko provides FCTG with a unique corporate online booking tool marketed as SAVI as part of the arrangement. In terms of Booking.com, a revenue sharing agreement is in place whereby Serko provides the underlying technology for Booking for Business, and Booking Holdings owns 4.7% of Serko and provides travel technology expertise. Today, Booking.com for business has over 500k companies registered across 180 countries and is supported in multiple languages. Serko produces white label storefront technology that powers the travel industry, it also produced the world's first marketplace that allows the supplier to connect their content into the storefront with or without the need for legacy GBD (Global distribution System) PNR's. Serko owns multiple key market patents. The founders of Serko have been referenced as the inventors of online corporate travel in May 1994 with their first product called CABS (Corporate Automated Booking System) the platform was used by Amadeus in the 1990's to prove prior art claims against previously filed patents. Serko's other main partnership is with Carlson Wagonlit Travel, enabling Serko to expand into the North American marketplace and enabling Carlson Wagonlit Travel to retain market share win the Australia and New Zealand markets. The company was also the first travel technology company to partner with

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., or simply Southwest, is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States that formerly operated on a low-cost carrier model. It is headquartered in the Love Field, Dallas, Love Field neighborhood ...

and

Qantas Qantas ( ), formally Qantas Airways Limited, is the flag carrier of Australia, and the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations in Australia and List of largest airlines in Oceania, Oceania. A foundi ...

to provide their airfares on the newly developed NDC Exchange.

References

{{NZX 50 companies New Zealand companies established in 2007 Travel management Companies in the S&P/NZX 50 Index

History

COVID-19 challenges

Partnerships

See also

References