Hostelworld enhances social travel platform offering through acquisition of OccasionGenius

Hostelworld has announced the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of OccasionGenius Inc. (“OccasionGenius”), a US-based B2B event discovery platform, for a total cash consideration of USD 12 million.

OccasionGenius empowers businesses to inspire their audiences with a global event dataset delivered via API, comprising a rich, city-by-city catalogue of local ‘Things to Do’ and a unique global dataset of ‘travel worthy’ events that inspire travellers to book trips.

The company addresses the critical need for accurate, large-scale event information. Its unique, technology-based aggregation capabilities, supplemented with a human-curated approach, ensure details such as venues, dates, and times are reliable. This factual data is then enriched with inspirational descriptions, rights-cleared imagery, and extensive event metadata to create a comprehensive, marketing-ready content asset for their blue-chip clients.

This move is a natural step in Hostelworld’s growth strategy and builds on the success of its social strategy, reinforcing the ambition to create the world’s leading social travel platform. The acquisition accelerates the development of Hostelworld’s events capability, giving immediate access to structured, global event data; content that would otherwise take years to build organically. By integrating OccasionGenius, Hostelworld expands accommodation into events, strengthen community connection, and advance our broader social monetisation strategy.

The strategic rationale is clear, compelling, and based on three key pillars:

• Enhances social travel platform: Travellers can now discover not just where to stay and who to meet, but also what to do, all in one place.
• Accelerates growth and monetisation: Highlighting major travel-worthy events helps inspire trips early in the planning journey, boosting bookings and social engagement.
• Creates a unique data asset: Combining event data with Hostelworld’s existing social and booking insights provides valuable, long-term insights into traveller behaviour.

Once fully integrated, the new content will enrich the platform, driving growth in social members, bookings, and social network revenues. OccasionGenius is growing fast, with forecasted annualised recurring revenue of EUR 1.5m by year-end, and Hostelworld’s financial guidance for 2025 remains unchanged.

“This acquisition positions Hostelworld as the first social travel platform to combine social networking, event discovery, and accommodation. OccasionGenius allows us to instantly add a wealth of content that would have taken years to build, enhancing experiences for travellers and value for our shareholders,” said Gary Morrison, Hostelworld Group CEO.