Join UP!

Join UP! is thrilled to announce the opening of our first franchise office in Poland. After over a year of establishing a strong network of local agents and bolstering our sales team, we are taking a bold step forward by launching our inaugural franchise office in Katowice. This move signifies our commitment to providing accessible and friendly travel services not only to our valued customers but also to our esteemed agents. With successful models already in place in Ukraine and Moldova, we are excited to introduce our proven business model to the Polish market, enabling even faster expansion. "Our focus has always been on fostering strong B2B partnerships, and our franchise model allows us to do just that," says Anna Staszewska , Managing Director of Join UP! Polska. "We are thrilled to bring our successful formula to Poland, and we are confident that this strategic move will propel us towards achieving our ambitious business goals even faster." Join UP! offers franchisees maximum commission rates, comprehensive central office support, marketing assistance, and a lucrative bonus program. The response from potential franchisees has been overwhelming, especially with our special promotion for the first 5 offices - no licensing fees for the first year and no initial fees. "We anticipate seeing many more offices opening across Poland in the coming years, and we are exploring opportunities to expand our franchise offering to Romania and Kazakhstan in the near future," adds Maryna Daineko, Head of Sales Development at Join UP! Our strength lies in our people, and we are committed to supporting entrepreneurs in every market we enter, providing them with the tools they need to build successful businesses alongside Join UP! Join us as we embark on this exciting journey of growth and opportunity. Together, let's redefine the travel industry landscape in Poland and beyond!

🌟 Exciting News from Join UP! Baltic! 🌍✈️   The Baltic States: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, was the first market Join UP! entered in Europe, in April 2022.    2023 was a remarkable year of growth for Join UP! Baltic! 72% more customers were served in the three Baltic States in 2023 compared to the previous year, solidifying its position as one of the leading tour operators in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia!     In 2023, Join UP! Baltic organized over 500 trips to Egypt, Turkey, Montenegro, Spain, and Sri Lanka, expanding its range of offerings twice over. Travel trends revealed Turkey as the preferred summer destination, closely followed by Egypt for both summer and winter seasons. Notably, Montenegro, Tenerife, and Sri Lanka captured significant interest among adventurous Baltic clientele.     Sabina Saikovskaja, CEO and Member of the Board of Join UP! Baltic commenting on Baltic travellers' habits, says: “Most of our customers still prefer to revisit a familiar destination, familiar resorts. However, the desire for new destinations, accessible exotics is emerging and growing among Baltic travellers. So we are gradually adding new destinations: last year we saw a great interest in the Balkan pearl Montenegro, and at the end of the year we observed a demand for the exotic and started offering affordable exotic travel to Sri Lanka with the only direct flight from all three Baltic capitals. The biggest success in the first two months for this destination has been in Lithuania, where we added 50% more flights from February due to the high demand.”    “Join UP! Baltic is proud to be one of the leaders in the Baltic tourism market, offering a modern, high-quality product, introducing new travel destinations, and embracing innovations. Our goal is to continue strengthening Join UP! position in the Baltic market, keep up with market demand, and offer a wider range of destinations. In 2024, Join UP! Baltic plans to increase our volume by 32%, notes Sabina Saikovskaja.    Join UP! Baltic stands out as an innovative tour operator, introducing unique solutions such as its own app for trip purchases and live customer service through popular messengers like Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct, Telegram, and Viber – a "Guide in the pocket." This ensures Join UP! Baltic's travellers receive real-time assistance and support on the go.      Since April 2022, Join UP! Baltic has been providing tourism services in the Baltics, with a dedicated team of 52 professionals across Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn.  While the Join UP! brand retains its Ukrainian roots, all business processes are created and managed by the professional local team.     Thank you for being part of Join UP! Baltic's journey! 🙌🎉     

Join UP! starts on the Czech market 👏 We are pleased to provide the best experience to our clients in the Czech Republic and are currently looking for talented and passion team members. Here is our spring job pool. Learn more about open career opportunities by the links below and send your CV via the application forms or directly talent_acquisition@up.family Join a multinational team of challengers who are transforming the travel industry every day and making people's travel dreams come true! 🌟 Sales Managers, Join UP! Prague  https://lnkd.in/dvC7hXwq 🌟Product Manager, Join UP! Prague  https://lnkd.in/dUzk3ymt 🌟PR Manager, Join UP! Prague https://lnkd.in/d7kRchkM 🌟Marketing Manager, Join UP! Prague  https://lnkd.in/dvNZ499a 🌟HR Generalist, Join UP! Prague  https://lnkd.in/dGr69VpS 🌟Reservation Manager, Join UP! Prague  https://lnkd.in/d_TiWAj3

We are delighted to announce that Join UP! Polska strengthens its team with a new professional. From February 1, 2024, Anna Staszewska becomes the Managing Director of Join UP! Polska. Anna has 20 years of professional background in the travel industry, airlines, and IT. She is a dedicated professional known for establishing the right and long-term relationships with clients, building a positive company image, and conducting extensive market research that leads to sales growth. Ekaterina Ushakova, Regional Director Join UP! Europe, mentioned: “Anna is the right fit for our team. I am grateful for her decision to join us, and I am confident that we will see strengthening of our strategy in Poland, including developing new destinations, expanding the geography of departure cities, increasing the volume of existing destinations, increasing the distribution soon”.

Join UP! ™ is a tour operator, established in Ukraine in June 2010, and it is a part of UPfamily™ group of businesses. Currently, tour operators under the Join UP!™ brand operate in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Kazakhstan. New Join UP!™ tour operator is to open in the Czech Republic in 2024. As of January 2024, the company has more than 150 employees in 8 countries. Values that our company shares are Work Responsibly, Keep costs reasonable, Challenge accepted, Play together, Energy&Love. Speaking about the last one, we can surely tell that people play the most important role for our company. We love our employees and strive to support their creativity and energy. This is visible due to the fact how many years they work with us. At the beginning of the year we decided to ask several colleagues, who crossed this year the 10th anniversary of working for the company, what keeps them here and why they like to work together and grow with us. #UPfamily #team #values

Join UP! continues to share comments from our top managers in different markets. In this series of posts, we discuss the challenges we face and how we overcome them. Ekaterina Ushakova, Regional Director of Join UP! Europe, gave an interview to the Romanian media outlet BIZ, discussing current issues, trends, and the brand's intentions regarding awareness, trust in a new market, and brand recognition. Firstly, Kateryna mentioned that the Ukrainian brand, in general, is perceived with some mistrust in new markets due to the war in Ukraine. People are concerned about financial stability, and there are prejudices that after Ukraine's victory, we might reduce activity in the EU markets. Our clients are observing us closely, seeking to understand our long-term commitment. We are gradually learning to overcome these stereotypes. Join UP! has separate legal entities in each country; we must obtain a tour operator license and take out insurance to confirm the reliability and safety of travel for our tourists. In essence, we establish a new tour operator in each country. Moreover, we have a 100% local team working everywhere. The CEO, sales, reservations, marketing, and accounting are all composed of local team members. While the brand maintains its Ukrainian roots, all business processes are shaped by the local teams. Building brand awareness is also a challenge, requiring either a significant investment in advertising or time for tourists to experience our services. Join UP! adopts an individualized approach to each market, creating advertising campaigns in some areas and maintaining an intensive flight schedule in others. A wide selection of destinations and significant tourist volumes on each flight help us build brand recognition over multiple seasons. We observe an increase in tourist arrivals worldwide, albeit not as rapid as last year. Presently, we are experiencing a more moderate pace of continuous growth. Each market exhibits different dynamics, with its growth or decline linked to the economic situation in each specific country and depending on various factors. Currently, in the diverse markets where we operate, tourism is growing by 3%-10% per year. We are committed to growing faster than the market to achieve our target share. https://lnkd.in/dshVsZEC

Join UP! Polska is celebrating its first year of activity in Poland and shares data after one year of operation. The branch began operating a year ago, with the first tours starting in spring 2023. Since then, the tour operator has provided comfortable vacations for more than 20,000 travelers from Poland. The top three destinations for Polish tourists are Turkey (37.35%), Egypt (36.69%), and Tunisia (8%). The average spending per tourist in Poland was 2,772 zł, which is typical across all EU markets. Surprisingly, only 32.73% of Polish tourists travel with children, compared to the average of 40.92% for all 8 markets of operations. It's interesting to note that only 1.5% of Polish tourists opt for adult-only hotels, despite the above-mentioned statistics. When it comes to accommodation preferences, the majority of bookings, 48.19%, are for 5-star hotels, which are the top choice. "The first year of operations looks quite promising, especially since we mainly operate during the summer season. We have already started winter season sales and are seeing growing demand for destinations such as Sri Lanka, Zanzibar, and other winter getaways. As Poland is an important market for us, we are grateful that Polish tourists trust us. Although it is not an easy market, we have the expertise and ideas to overcome all challenges, and we hope to achieve even more significant results in the future," says Sergey Kyrychenko, Business Development Director Join UP!. Join UP! aims to continue providing unforgettable travel experiences and remain a trusted partner for travelers of all ages. Join UP! travel brand is presented in 8 markets and does all this best to offer the service of exceptional quality for the travelers with different tastes. #tourism #Poland #businessdevelopment #JoinUP!

Turkey is one of our first and favorite destinations, with which Join UP! has been working for 8 years. During this time, about 1.2 million tourists experienced warm hospitality with us. We are working on the concept of holidays in the country in detail, creating a strong and competitive product, constantly working to improve the service and choosing partners who are close to our values. Today we are sharing news about our next common steps towards the development of the resort together with our partners. Yachting is a luxury travel trend that is becoming increasingly widespread. According to Research and Markets forecasts, the yachting market will grow by an average of 5.2% annually over the next 8 years, and the superyacht market by 6.2%. Rixos Sailing Cup is an event that has been held for 8 years in the Turkish bay of Göcek in November. Several international companies from different sectors have attended the event as participants just like Join UP! This year our company took part in this event for the first time. ‘It was a great opportunity for us to present two reputable Brands of Travel Industry together – Join UP! UP & Rixos Hotels’ – Murat Oral, CEO of Join UP! Turkey shared his impressions.   All these attending brands are accepted very selectively by Rixos Hotels Group. We have established a very close relationship with Rixos Group Hotel Management and also started to improve our commercial relationship this year as well.   To try in life what is unconventional, to enjoy new experience, to gradually reveal the light and your own uniqueness - these are the things that always give a sense of unconventionality. Following current travel trends, we have found another way to refine one of our concepts - #CelebrateYourself!

Alina Alba, co-founder of Join UP! and SkyUp Airlines, has given an interview to the Polish Forbes. She has shared useful insights about the tourist industry, development strategies and scaling in the international markets. Throughout our history, we have grown primarily by facing significant challenges. When everything is going smoothly, development is not that fast. We have overcome many obstacles along our way, each allowing us to reach a new, higher level of activity. When we were still just a travel agency selling offers from other travel agencies, at one point we independently organized several offers for holiday trips for our clients. The tour operators cooperating with us were afraid that we wanted to enter their market and become serious competition for them, because we were the largest agency in the country. They wanted to stop us, so they stopped selling us offers for the most popular destinations, such as Turkey. In such a situation, we had no choice but to actually become a tour operator. When our tour operator reached one million tourists a year, we opened an airline. We operated flights for our tourists and also launched regular flights. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we switched all our activities. With the passage of time SkyUp has become a love mark in Ukraine and currently serves our needs as a tour operator, and also performs flights under ACMI contracts. We are not going to stop, because the airline currently operates in many other markets and our plans are ambitious. We are definitely the ones who confirm from experience: a crisis is a rethinking, changes, and therefore a new impetus for development and growth. From September 2021, we were preparing to open the first branches in the EU - in the Baltic states. After the outbreak of the war, we accelerated these activities because tourist traffic in Ukraine and Moldova almost completely stopped. We directed all our efforts towards opening an office in the Baltic countries and in April 2022, the first flight of our clients from the Baltic countries took place, and after a year we received a European certificate for SkyUp Airlines and could offer flights with our planes. Since 2021, we have been developing in Kazakhstan, where we launched in 2022. Later, we opened a branch in Romania and before the last summer season in Poland. Our plans for next year include the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our goal is to create a good product that will make people happy. Furthermore, we want to provide top-notch service on all of our markets. We do our best to change the world for the better, not caring about maximizing profit at any cost. https://lnkd.in/dCi9EfS6

We are thrilled to share our strategic partner SkyUp Airlines' successful completion of the challenging task of taking out Gaza evacuees from Egypt to Ukraine. And we are proud that President Zelensky thanked them for help.  On November 11, SkyUp Airlines performed a special flight PQ 3118 to save Ukrainian, Moldovan, and Israeli refugees who fled from the Gaza Strip. On this flight, the airline brought 155 people from Cairo to Chisinau. For those who needed it, a bus transfer to Odesa has been provided.   "Since the beginning of our activity, we have faced multiple challenges. As a responsible business, we stand side by side with our state to help citizens who find themselves in difficult circumstances," Dmytro Sieroukhov Seroukhov, General Director at SkyUp Airlines, says. "In 2020, we evacuated Ukrainians from Wuhan; in 2022, we helped people flee from war. And today we are again joining efforts with the state to save the citizens of our country and bring them to safe places of stay." This flight represents the culmination of coordinated efforts within our nation, involving the commendable contributions of its diplomatic services, intelligence, and responsible business practices. We firmly believe that collaborative efforts and cooperation are essential to overcoming the most significant challenges and prioritising the safety of people's lives — a shared commitment of the state and SkyUp. This underscores our readiness to start operations immediately as soon as the airspace of Ukraine opens; a commitment consistently validated through actions, not mere words. * Source of the video www.president.gov.ua