Business Travel Rockstar Interview - Eric-Jan Krausch

Eric-Jan Krausch- Founder & CEO at 1-CP

Let's start with something about you. How did you start your professional career and how did you get into the travel industry?

My journey into the world of business travel began rather unusually: through my flatmate at the time. He ran an agency for business flats in 2013, while I worked as a consultant for online products, especially marketplaces.

At some point, we came up with the idea of creating a digital booking channel for flats - "Acomodeo" was born. We founded the company in 2015 and quickly achieved success. In 2019, we had over 40 major customers and a global inventory of business flats.

The highlight was the global order from Siemens in the same year to handle all bookings of 7 nights or more via Acomodeo. That was our accolade and confirmed us in our path!
This experience shaped me and laid the foundation for 1-CP. After I sold Acomodeo in 2021, we are now developing solutions that make B2B transactions as easy and efficient as online shopping in the B2C sector. A kind of "corporate PayPal" for the business world.

Our journey starts again in corporate travel, where we use our many years of experience and deep understanding of the industry to make life easier for companies and travellers.

Is there something that particularly fascinates you about this industry? Who or what has inspired you and/or continues to do so today?

The travel industry is a fascinating market that has produced great products and services and is characterised by many dedicated people. From a technical perspective, however, there is a lot of catching up to do, as many processes and technologies still date back to previous decades. Nevertheless, these systems work and offer many opportunities if you know how to use them correctly.

What has been your favourite experience during your professional career to date?

Mich inspirieren Menschen, die mit Leidenschaft und Kreativität neue Wege gehen und unkonventionelle Lösungen finden. Mein schönstes Erlebnis war, zu sehen, wie Kunden und Partner Vertrauen in unser Team, unser Tool und unsere Organisation setzen. Es hat einige Jahre gedauert, bis wir dieses Vertrauen aufgebaut hatten, aber es ist unglaublich motivierend zu sehen, wie die harte Arbeit und das Engagement Früchte tragen.

In your opinion, what is the greatest achievement in travel technology since the turn of the millennium?

Proper interfaces - Although they are not yet widespread, when you come across one that is well designed and not based on "legacy processes", it makes work a lot more fun!

Do you have a favourite among the technologies that have been developed for the travel industry?

Theoretically the PNR - unfortunately it is not yet state of the art. Nevertheless, it is a standard that works across products and processes, and that is something special. It is sometimes frightening how much is based on it and at the same time impressive how this old system can be repurposed to enable new solutions.

What would you recommend to newcomers to the industry in terms of technology?

Not just to smile at the "old systems", but to engage with them and understand their history before rashly condemning them.

Where do you currently see the biggest and most important challenges in the industry? Do you have any thoughts on how you would tackle them?

I see a major problem in the increasing number of "throughput heaters" in the value chain, which no longer offer any added value but increase technical complexity and make digital value creation unnecessarily expensive. To counteract this, we need a new generation of centralised systems that work with the latest technology and make the historically grown interim solutions superfluous.

Quick-Fire Questions

Who is the next business travel rock star we should interview?

I nominate Patrick Diemer, Advisor, Co-Founder und Boardchair at BT4 Europe.