Yandex could buy hotel booking platform Ostrovok - media

MOSCOW. May 28 (Interfax) - Subsidiaries of Yandex have become the main contender for the purchase of online hotel booking service Ostrovok after Avito and Sutochno.ru withdrew from negotiations, newspaper Kommersant said, citing market sources.

They said that the current focus of negotiations was the price of the deal - the owners of Ostrovok were hoping to sell the business for 20 billion rubles, but Yandex is prepared to pay 15 billion rubles at most.

The deal includes the brand and contracts with hotel owners, while the platform software will remain in the hands of the service's owner, Emerging Travel Group (ETG), the source told Kommersant.

He said that the group was planning to use the software for its international assets, which are also hotel booking services for businesses. The source said that this was the reason why the purchase of Ostrovok remained of interest to Yandex, which already has similar technological solutions. ETG could possibly conduct an IPO in New York after selling Ostrovok, the source said.

He said the primary reason for Yandex to buy Ostrovok was to increase its market share by acquiring its closest competitor.

Ostrovok is currently one of Russia's biggest online travel agencies. According to data from Travelline, 24.8% of all hotel bookings at the start of May 2026 were made via the platform, an increase of 0.11 percentage points (pp) year-on-year. The service's closest competitors are Yandex Travel and Yandex subsidiary Acase.ru, which collectively made up 34.9% of the sales made via online travel agencies.

Purchasing Ostrovok will allow Yandex to occupy the same position on the Russian market as Booking.com did before it left Russia in 2022, head of the Russian Tourism Industry Union startups commission Leonid Pustov said.

Ostrovok was founded by Sergei Fage and Kirill Makharinsky in 2010. The service is currently owned by Emerging Travel Group (ETG), registered in the U.S. The service's Russian businesses are controlled by Maletto Investments Ltd., established in the UAE. The combined revenue of Ostrovok's three operating companies, Traveltech, Hotel Booking and Agentika Travel, increased 13.5% to 10.86 billion rubles in 2025.