Our History

Over the past nearly 14 years, HeBS’ principals and experts have pioneered many of the "best practices" in Internet marketing and direct online channel distribution in the hospitality and travel verticals.

1994-1995: Affordable Europe Vacations:
Pioneering travel website and online booking engine, one of the earliest examples of online travel implementations in the industry. More online bookings generated for the guaranteed departure tours program via the website and custom-made website booking engine, than from the company’s print tour brochure. Max Starkov was President & CEO.

1996-2000: TravelBreak.com:
Innovative direct supplier-to-consumer online travel marketplace, ranked 3rd in traffic after Priceline.com. Website had over 15,000 travel suppliers and 1 million unique visitors. TravelBreak’s co-founder and CEO Max Starkov authored and won patent approval for an innovative Web-based application for Dynamic Bargaining Process to Facilitate Consumer-Driven Purchase Demand in the travel industry (Serial # 09/557,325), an industry first.

2000-2001: Whale Media, Inc.
Cutting-edge hospitality online booking engine and travel technology infrastructure provider to the hospitality, corporate travel and convention and meetings markets. Under co-founder and CEO Max Starkov’s leadership, Whale Media won the coveted Microsoft 2001 Worldwide RAD Award for the SmartSuite online reservation system for hospitality.

2001-Present: Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc.
Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc. (HeBS) is the industry's leading full-service Internet marketing services and strategy consulting firm for the hospitality and travel verticals.

A diverse client portfolio of over 500 top tier major hotel brands, luxury hotel and resort brands, golf and spa resorts, casinos, franchisees and independents, hotel management companies, meeting and conference venues, CVB’s, has sought and successfully taken advantage of HeBS’ hotel Internet marketing expertise. See a sample of our impressive client portfolio.