In a crowded landscape of hotel booking platforms, BusinessHotels.com has carved out a distinctive niche. What started as a simple idea—helping business travelers find reliable accommodations quickly and efficiently—has evolved into a powerful global platform, poised to redefine the business travel experience?
Unlike many traditional travel platforms bogged down by complicated corporate contracts and membership fees, BusinessHotels.com is free to use, open to everyone, and designed for today’s modern, unmanaged business travelers as well as leisure seekers. In fact, about 50% of the platform’s users are “bleisure” travelers: people combining work trips with personal getaways.
But what truly sets BusinessHotels.com apart is its long-term vision: creating the Connected Trip for Business, a seamless ecosystem that will eventually integrate flights, cars, extended stays, and activities—all through one unified, intuitive platform.
Origins: Solving a Personal Problem
The story of BusinessHotels.com begins with its founder, Drago Maximov, an entrepreneur and frequent traveler who experienced firsthand the frustrations of booking hotels for business trips.
“I found myself wasting hours comparing different platforms, dealing with hidden fees, and struggling to find business-friendly hotels near my meetings,” recalls Maximov. “There wasn’t a simple, trustworthy site that catered to how business travelers actually travel.”
Rather than wait for someone else to build the solution, Maximov launched BusinessHotels.com. The platform focused on speed, simplicity, and direct access to the best rates, without the clutter of irrelevant vacation packages or paid subscription plans.
The Platform: Free, Open, and Focused
From the start, BusinessHotels.com made two bold decisions: no contracts and no paid memberships. Unlike corporate travel agencies and membership-only platforms, BusinessHotels.com offers:
- Completely free usage for everyone
- No booking fees or hidden charges
- Instant booking of hotels in over 220 countries
- A mobile-first design, perfect for on-the-go professionals
The goal? To be the easiest and fastest way for business travelers—and anyone else—to book hotels that meet their needs.
Over time, the platform expanded to include curated hotel recommendations, traveler reviews, and dynamic pricing tools that help users find the right stay without the guesswork.
Embracing the “Bleisure” Generation
Maximov noticed early on that many business travelers tack on a few extra days to explore new cities. BusinessHotels.com evolved to support these “bleisure” travelers, providing both business-centric accommodations and options for leisure getaways, weekend escapes, and family trips.
Today, roughly half of all BusinessHotels.com users are traveling for a mix of business and leisure, reflecting a larger shift in the way professionals approach travel.
Q&A With Drago Maximov, Founder of BusinessHotels.com
Q1: What inspired you to create BusinessHotels.com?
Maximov: Frustration! I was constantly traveling and couldn’t find a single platform that catered to business travelers without the corporate contracts or the vacation packages I didn’t need.
Q2: What makes your platform different from others?
Maximov: Simplicity. We’re free, there are no membership fees, and we’re laser-focused on business travelers—especially unmanaged ones who book for themselves.
Q3: Can anyone use BusinessHotels.com, or is it just for corporate travelers?
Maximov: Anyone can use it. Whether you’re traveling for work, leisure, or both, it’s completely open and free to use. No barriers.
Q4: What’s your take on the “bleisure” travel trend?
Maximov: I think it’s the future. People don’t want to separate work and life so rigidly anymore. We built our platform to support that lifestyle.
Q5: How do you keep the platform free?
Maximov: We make revenue from hotel commissions—but we pass the best available rates directly to users. No hidden fees, no subscriptions.
Q6: Tell us about the Connected Trip vision.
Maximov: The Connected Trip is our way of integrating every part of business travel—hotels, flights, cars, activities—into one seamless experience. Business travelers shouldn’t have to juggle five apps to plan one trip.
Q7: What’s next for BusinessHotels.com?
Maximov: We’re expanding our ecosystem with BusinessFlights.com, BusinessCars.com, BusinessStays.com, and BusinessActivities.com. All part of building a one-stop super app for business travel.
Q8: Why focus on unmanaged business travelers?
Maximov: They’re the majority—small business owners, freelancers, remote workers, startup teams. These travelers don’t have corporate travel managers booking trips for them.
Q9: How do you see AI impacting business travel in the next few years?
Maximov: AI will make booking smarter—personalized suggestions, dynamic pricing, smart itinerary adjustments. We’re already working on that.
Q10: If you could give one piece of advice to a business traveler, what would it be?
Maximov: Stay flexible. The right platform—hopefully ours—helps you adapt quickly when plans change.
The Bigger Vision: Powering the Connected Trip
Looking ahead, BusinessHotels.com is playing a central role in the launch of ConnectedTrip.com, an initiative designed to unify all travel services under one platform. This vision expands far beyond hotel bookings.
Maximov and his team are working on a suite of travel platforms:
- BusinessFlights.com for booking business flights with preferred times and routes.
- BusinessCars.com for car rentals, ride shares, and executive transport.
- BusinessStays.com for extended stays, co-living spaces, and long-term rentals.
- BusinessActivities.com for booking meetings, networking events, and local experiences.
Together, these services will form a Connected Trip super app, designed to provide everything a business traveler needs in one place. Whether booking a flight, finding a hotel, or securing a rental car, travelers will enjoy a frictionless, unified experience.
Staying Independent, Staying Free
Even as the platform grows, one thing remains unchanged: BusinessHotels.com is free to use and designed to empower the traveler, not lock them into expensive memberships or restrictive corporate programs.
“Our mission is to support the 99% of business travelers who are independent,” says Maximov. “No fees, no contracts—just the tools they need to travel better.”
In an age when travel is increasingly complex, this traveler-first approach is refreshingly simple—and likely to define the future of business travel.
Conclusion: A Business Travel Revolution in the Making
From humble beginnings to a global platform, BusinessHotels.com is proving that you don’t need corporate contracts or complicated fees to lead in the travel space. By focusing on the needs of real travelers—balancing work and leisure, managing their own bookings, and seeking simplicity—the company has positioned itself at the forefront of the next generation of travel platforms.
With the Connected Trip on the horizon, BusinessHotels.com is no longer just a hotel booking site. It’s becoming the hub of a connected, streamlined travel experience for a new era of business travelers.
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