Blastness has acquired Athena Solutions, a travel tech company specialising in the hospitality industry. Under the brand ErmesHotels, Athena Solutions supplies dedicated software; services offered include booking systems, automated quotations, channel management, GDS connectivity, and automated payments.
The acquisition enriches the Blastness portfolio, which includes more tech solutions and strategic luxury hotels. It reinforces the company’s position in the Italian market, where it has remained the foremost provider of reservation systems for 5-star hotels for over 14 years. The acquisition also ensures complete business continuity for Athena Solutions, whose founders will continue to work in managerial positions within the group.
The deal is just the latest stage of a successful 2024 for Blastness, now in its 20th year of activity. For the first time, the summer of 2024 saw the value of direct bookings of the Blastness portfolio in Italy match the volumes of Booking.com.
Andrea Delfini, Blastness’ founder and CEO, said, “This deal is of great value to us and represents an important development in the growth of our group. Athena Solutions is an Italian company with an impressive history, solid expertise and a recognised reputation in the hotel market. The acquisition is a great opportunity to be able to provide the high value-added Blastness systems and services to Athena’s customer base, which closely corresponds to our target market, where we have developed a wealth of experience. With this acquisition, more than 1,800 hotels will benefit from the services offered by the merger.”
Founded in 2003, Athena Solutions was the beta test company for Expedia for the launch of Xml connectivity by developing ErmesHotels, the first Xml Channel Manager in the Italian market, which to date has over 200 certified connections with retail channels. Founded and directed by Marco D’Amore, Roberto Romano and Roberto Santececca, it now boasts more than 600 properties.
Marco D’Amore said, “The acquisition represents a great opportunity for growth. Aware that we are part of a market-leading group, we will continue to serve our customers with our usual quality and professionalism. We now also have the opportunity to offer the wide range of products that Blastness has built up in the web, advertising, revenue and consultancy sectors to satisfy all digital needs in the area of hotel reservation management.”
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