ialoc app has reached one million people sitting at the tables in over 2000 restaurants from the main cities of Romania

ialoc app starts 2021 with a new milestone reached:the threshold of one million people seated at the tables in over 2000 restaurants in the main cities in Romania: Bucharest, Brasov, Iasi, Sibiu, Timisoara, Cluj, Arad, Constanta, Bacau, Suceava and Satu Mare.

One of the sectors most affected by the pandemic crisis is the hospitality industry, which suffered significant losses in 2020. Furthermore, the smaller capacity of restaurants has decreased sales, with some places having availability of about 25% of the total number of seats for the customers, while 30% of restaurants are closed for an indefinitely period.

Moreover, clients are much more cautious and prefer to avoid public places of leisure, especially taking into consideration the news regarding the non-compliance with social distance in places and areas already established with large audiences.

The threshold of one million people seated at the tables, both through the app and through the software developed for restaurants to manage reservations, is one of the key moments of maturity of the application we created. The national expansion has considerably increased the number of reservations, even if we are not going through the most favourable period. Also, the creation of new products, such as gift cards to be used later this year in restaurants, cafes and other small shops has helped increase the notoriety of ialoc brand and gain new audiences who understand that we are trying to add value to the business in this field, strongly affected by the crisis”, said Cosmin Magureanu, CEO and co-founder of ialoc.

The cities where the application is most often used are Bucharest, which leads the top, followed by Cluj Napoca and Brasov, to which are added over 37,248 real reviews left by ialoc users who booked through ialoc.

In Bucharest, Switch.Eat, Nomad Skybar and Journey Pub were the favourite places of ialoc users, while international, American and urban cuisines became the most requested, according to the application data.

The most preferred reserved day is Saturday, and the time with the most reservations is 19.00, the interval most often chosen by users being for dinner, between 17.00 – 21.00, shows the data.

2020 has meant a 75% decrease in the number of bookings since March, but we have managed to work better with existing partners, understand their needs and help them, as much as possible, with the simplification of procedures and a easier communication with the public. Ialoc’s reservation system helped in the first phase of the restaurant’s reopening in June, and then we strengthened our partnerships with the hospitality businesses. Predictably, the number of people who served a meal at a restaurant decreased, from 4.94 in 2019 to 3.47 in 2020, ” explains Cosmin Magureanu.

For 2021, ialoc will continue to promote gift cards as an alternative for going out, especially since most restaurants and cafes enrolled in the program also offer take-away services. Also, ialoc aims to open new cities in Romania where you can make reservations through the application, but also a more consistent support for the hospitality industry by launching new services.

ialoc is a suite of applications dedicated to generating (ialoc, ialoc.ro) and processing (ialoc Business) reservations in the city. Using ialoc, users can book a table in over 2,000 places from 11 cities in Romania (Bucharest, Brasov, Iasi, Sibiu, Timisoara, Cluj, Arad, Constanta, Bacau, Suceava, Satu Mare) and cancel a reservation without call the place. Also, through the application, users have the opportunity to list their favourite places to find them more easily, but also to see all the reservations they have made since the first installation of the app.

ialoc was founded in 2017 as a digital reservation management solution, but very quickly it developed into a marketing tool for restaurants and a discovery app for people looking for new places to go. In 2019, ialoc has become TripAdvisor official partner by directly integrating with them, which allows tourists to book a table directly from the Tripadvisor app through ialoc.