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We had a wide-ranging conversation with Cengiz Şen, CEO of Butikotels.com – from the positioning of boutique hotels in the digital world to the hybrid OTA model, from the shift in guest behaviour to Butikotels.com’s vision for the future. Şen explained in detail the new-generation approach that brings independent and chain hotels together on a single platform.
When you founded Butikotels.com you positioned small and boutique hotels as “the boutique holiday guide of the new world”. How did that vision come about? How do you see the future of the boutique hotel concept in Türkiye?
Butikotels.com began as a platform whose starting point was to make boutique and independent properties visible, accessible and sustainable in the digital world. Today, however, we have become a new-generation hybrid OTA ecosystem that covers not only boutique, city, nature and themed properties but national and international chain hotels as well.
That vision grew out of a very clear need we saw in the field. There were thousands of high-quality independent properties in Türkiye, but they were getting lost among the large OTAs, while chain hotels needed flexible, alternative sales channels.
The “boutique holiday guide of the new world” approach emerged to fill that gap, and over time it evolved from a niche into a model with national coverage.
I see a very strong future for the boutique hotel concept. Guests are moving away from standardised experiences and choosing properties with character and a story. This shift is prompting not only boutique hotels but city and chain hotels too to reposition themselves. In 2026 and beyond we will see these two worlds meeting on the same platform far more often.
How have the digital media and publishing activities you run under Pegasus Mondial made a difference in promoting boutique hotels? How have those experiences shaped Butikotels.com today?
Pegasus Mondial taught us a critical distinction in tourism:
visibility alone is not enough; the right narrative is the sale itself.
On the publishing side we observed this for years: whether boutique or chain, when a property meets the right story and the right audience, the sales follow by themselves. Butikotels.com’s approach to content, segmentation and positioning today is a direct result of that experience.
We are not an OTA that simply sells rooms; we have built a structure that presents a property in the right context, matches it with the right guest and creates sustainable value for independent and chain hotels alike. The publishing and media discipline that came from Pegasus Mondial was decisive in positioning Butikotels.com as a tourism technology brand.
As the online booking brand of CAUCAS Turizm Seyahat Acentası you bring boutique hotels, villas and holiday homes together under one roof. What are the strongest value propositions you offer consumers?
Butikotels.com is a secure online booking platform operating under CAUCAS Turizm Seyahat Acentası that covers city and chain hotels as well as boutique and independent properties.
On the consumer side we have three core value propositions:
Trust, Convenience and Access.
We build trust through transparent pricing, genuine properties and a contractual structure. We offer convenience with fast booking processes and clear cancellation terms. And we widen access by bringing boutique, city, nature, thermal and chain hotels together on a single platform.
Thanks to our payment infrastructure, our operational control mechanisms and our integrated technology systems, we create a booking experience that is secure for the guest and sustainable for the property. For us trust is not a marketing slogan; it is the foundation of our business model.
Demand for small and boutique hotels has risen in recent years. What are the main motivations behind that choice? How do you assess the segment for 2025 and beyond?
As of 2025 we are seeing a very clear break in guest behaviour. The priority now is trust, value and experience.
While large, high-cost properties are coming under pressure in the domestic market, the more flexible structures in the boutique, city, nature and thermal segments are rapidly coming to the fore. This is pushing not only independent hotels but chain hotels too towards alternative sales channels.
We expect the growth potential of boutique and mid-sized properties in the 2025–2026 period to exceed that of other hotel segments. Butikotels.com’s combination of niche focus and broad portfolio maps exactly onto that shift.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Butikotels.com’s goal is to be a revenue-boosting, sustainable and technology-driven sales channel for boutique, independent and chain hotels in Türkiye.
Our near-term goals are clear: a strong ecosystem of more than 6,000 properties, a hybrid mobile app approved by Apple and Google, a multi-channel hybrid OTA model uniting B2C, B2B and agency channels, dynamic pricing technologies, and a new “pro–partner” business model designed for chain hotels.
This is not a story of ascent; it is a story of the market being redistributed. We are betting on transformation, not competition. We are determined to make Butikotels.com a tourism technology brand that will shape Türkiye’s next ten years.
As tourism in Türkiye digitalises rapidly, butikotels.com is putting forward an innovative model that combines this transformation with a “boutique mindset”. The years of hands-on hotel experience of the platform’s founder and CEO, Cengiz ŞEN, bring a different breath to the struggle of small, mid-sized and chain hotels for digital visibility. By going beyond the industry’s customary star classification and highlighting hotels with character and a story, the approach makes an important contribution to the branding of accommodation in Türkiye.
With its mobile applications about to go live, the platform is set to become one of the significant players of the age of AI-supported personalisation. Placing transparency, trust and the guest experience at its centre, butikotels.com stands out with a hybrid model that benefits hotels and guests alike. As Hotel Gazetesi, we will continue to follow this visionary work, which adds new value to the tourism ecosystem, and to bring it together with the industry.
Aliye Üçbaş, Editor-in-Chief of Hotel Gazetesi, spoke with Cengiz ŞEN, founder and CEO of butikotels.com, about the changing dynamics of the accommodation sector in Türkiye, the future of the OTA market and the vision that carries the ‘boutique mindset’ into the digital age. ŞEN stressed that they have built not merely a booking platform but a new-generation “experience ecosystem”.
Aliye Üçbaş: Mr Şen, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Would you share with us the path from your entry into the tourism sector to the founding story of butikotels.com?
Cengiz ŞEN: I began my working life in 1990 as head of financial and administrative affairs. I then took on the role of sales and marketing manager in the textile sector. The real turning point of my career, however, came in 2001, when I stepped into the accommodation sector at the Paradise Garden Hotel in Fethiye–Ölüdeniz, where I had gone on holiday.
From that time on I realised that tourism is not merely a line of business but a strategic field that contributes to the national economy. My management path, which began with a hotel management post in 2006, continued with the position of general manager in 2013.
During that period, while reinterpreting the boutique hotel philosophy along the axis of human relations and guest satisfaction, I carried out strategic work on reservation portals and online systems.
By founding Pegasus Mondial Dış Ticaret Ltd. Şti. in 2017 and Caucas Turizm Seyahat Acentası in 2020, we created a strong structure bringing together accommodation, travel and trade. And in the period after the pandemic, when digitalisation had become inevitable, “the holiday site of the new world” was the motto under which butikotels.com was born.
Aliye Üçbaş: What was the starting point of butikotels.com? Was it the result of a dream, or the answer to a gap in the sector?
Cengiz ŞEN: butikotels.com is in fact a dream that has met data, experience and intuition. That dream began with the idea of “making small and boutique hotels that get lost among the big brands visible” . Over time we realised that the world of accommodation does not consist of boutique hotels alone; ski, thermal, city, nature and seaside hotels carry that same spirit of personal experience.
That realisation took us out of being a niche platform and turned us into a three-way hybrid OTA ecosystem. Today we cooperate with more than 4,000 properties, from boutiques to chain hotels, and with new property and channel manager integrations we aim to reach 5,500–6,000 properties. In short, this journey is the data-driven growth story of a dream that began with noticing a gap.
Aliye Üçbaş: The name “Butikotels” evokes boutique hotels, yet we also see five-star chain hotels on the platform. How do you manage that diversity?
Cengiz ŞEN: For us “boutique” is not a size but a mindset. Bespoke experience, warmth and selectivity are in the DNA of butikotels.com. We assess chain or concept hotels not by their size but by the depth of the experience they offer the guest.
The secret of preserving the spirit of our brand lies in making our choices with feeling rather than with algorithms. We include each hotel in the system not only for its price or star rating but for its service quality, its atmosphere and its story.
Aliye Üçbaş: What features set butikotels.com apart from its competitors in the highly competitive OTA market?
Cengiz ŞEN: butikotels.com is a hybrid digital ecosystem built on OTA infrastructure and focused on B2C, B2B and partnership. Thanks to channel manager integrations and dynamic pricing models we raise hotels’ sales power and visibility to the highest level.
With AI-supported pricing, dynamic revenue management, a user-friendly interface and a direct access model, we have built a hybrid digital ecosystem that benefits both the guest and the hotel.
Our mobile applications are currently in closed testing on the App Store and Google Play.
Once the test phase is complete, we aim to lead the sector in user experience with AI-supported personalisation and dynamic recommendation algorithms.
Aliye Üçbaş: What criteria do you look at when including a hotel on the platform?
Cengiz ŞEN: For us the selection criterion is not the “star” but the “character”. A property’s architecture, atmosphere, service philosophy and guest experience are the most decisive points. Our team assesses properties not only with online data but with observations gathered in the field. Because in our view a good hotel merely hosts its guest, whereas a great hotel touches them.
Aliye Üçbaş: Trust and sincerity are very important in the digital world. How does butikotels.com provide that trust?
Cengiz ŞEN: Trust is the foundation of our system. Every property goes through a multi-layered verification process before joining the platform. The guest knows that the hotel they see really is that hotel; the hotel knows that its guest’s reservation is secure. User reviews, a transparent pricing policy and our personal data protection protocols always come first. We offer not merely a reservation but a contract based on mutual trust.
Aliye Üçbaş: What do guests expect from hotels now? Luxury, a simple experience, or a story?
Cengiz ŞEN: Nothing is measured any more solely by the word “luxury” . The new generation of guests prefers places with a story. They do not stay in a hotel; they become part of a way of life. Our aim is to tell that story properly. That is why butikotels.com is not only a booking platform but also a “holiday guide”. We offer the guest a journey of experience.
Aliye Üçbaş: Where do you see butikotels.com in 2026 and beyond?
Cengiz ŞEN: We are shortly launching our digital visibility and branding process on a national scale through new partnerships. Our targets for 2026 include:
reaching 6,000+ properties,
integrating with 5+ channel managers,
achieving high brand awareness on a national scale. In the next stage we want to position ourselves on a global scale on the way to becoming the boutique holiday brand of the new world.
Aliye Üçbaş: Finally, is there anything you would like to add?
Cengiz ŞEN: I see tourism as the building of a country’s image. The story of butikotels.com is in fact not the story of a piece of software but of a vision. Our priority is to make the voice of our hotels heard more strongly and to bring our local values together with the transformative power of the digital world. We want to take Türkiye’s success in tourism to a higher level through technology. Because we know that experiences which touch the guest’s heart can be made more personal, more accessible and more meaningful through digitalisation. Our aim is not merely to list hotels but to create a new-generation holiday culture that brings these hotels, the very soul of Türkiye, together with the world’s guests.
www.butikotels.com, is a holiday platform designed with the vision of “the Holiday Site and Holiday Guide of the New World”. www.butikotels.com, was launched in 2020 with the aim of making holiday planning easier, more accessible and more enjoyable. The platform’s goal is to offer users unforgettable holiday experiences and to bring together options to suit every budget.
Thanks to its user-friendly interface and advanced filtering features, it allows you to find the perfect hotel you are looking for in a few clicks. With its sectoral experience and customer-focused approach to service, it aims to offer access at the most favourable prices to hotels in popular holiday destinations.
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