Getting reservations at the world’s top bars and restaurants can be a big hassle these days. And the digital platforms that have cropped up to procure them have become quite a big business, to match – a multi-billion dollar market that is increasingly attracting the attention of credit card companies. These major financial institutions see the reservations game as more than just a cottage industry; it’s a novel way to attract high-net-worth spenders.

Alex Zhardanovsky sees it as a broken system. So the serial entrepreneur, who has already made millions in e-Commerce , is throwing his hat into the ring to fix it. Earlier this year he launched PRIMA: a dedicated marketplace for the hospitality industry. The novel platform connects restaurants, hotels, concierges, and guests in a unified system. Its grand aim is to streamline hospitality on both sides of the table, monetizing premium demand and elevating the guest experience.

Locking down prime-time tables in places like New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Vegas has become one of the most competitive practices of the modern era. Bots and AI agents gobble up availability to turn profit on secondary markets. Fake reservations deny real humans who show up at the door. And concierges are left with scant reliable options for the experiences their guests demand.

"PRIMA was built to solve a real problem: the world’s best restaurants have empty seats during off-peak hours and turned-away guests during peak ones," says Zhardanovsky "PRIMA brings these two realities together — rewarding restaurants, empowering concierges, and delivering guests the access they deserve.”

PRIMA VIP is not just a guest product — it is a complete ecosystem. Restaurants receive guaranteed high-intent diners and share 60% of the premium access fee in addition to the guest check. Concierges and hotel partners earn commissions tracked in real time, with predictable bi-monthly payouts. Guests receive experiences once reserved only for insiders.

After initially rolling out in Miami, the PRIMA app is now expanding globally. Users browse the platform’s curated restaurant inventory, select from exclusive prime-time availability, and receive immediate confirmation. It integrates directly with restaurant reservation and table-management systems, guaranteeing that every booking is real and every table is held for real humans.

Like any notable entrepreneur in the tech space, Zhardanovsky isn’t just looking to market a popular app – he wants to “disrupt” an entire industry. And when it comes to hospitality he sees a lot in need of disruption. Revolutionizing reservations, it seems, is just the start. To get a better sense of how he intends to change the game, we chatted with the PRIMA founder in an exclusive interview that has been edited for length and clarity. Read on below…

What fundamental problem did you see in the reservation system that you felt was vitally in need of change?

Alex Zhardanovsky: “We are all glued to our phones. Some for play, but mostly for work. There’s always someone asking a question, a favor, or for a recommendation. A dentist for your kid, a nanny for the birthday party, a table at a nightclub, a restaurant recommendation. For those of us up at the top of the industry who are ‘in the know,’ this sometimes means hours per day of helping make arrangements for friends and colleagues all over the world. It shouldn’t be this way. PRIMA creates an operating network where every recommendation becomes trackable economic activity. Hospitality has always been fragmented because of the ‘club’ mentality. You can only get in if you ‘know’ someone, or pay a fee. This is the fundamental mind shift PRIMA enables: by working cooperatively, the entire industry benefits. Our vision is an interconnected hospitality ecosystem where demand can move more intelligently, recommendations can be attributed, bookings can be managed more efficiently, and the people who create value can participate in the economics they help generate."

What does that cooperation entail?

AZ: “The bar and restaurant industry’s best operators frequently rely on ten or more platforms that they are forced to log into daily just to manage reservations, marketing, guest communication, payments, reporting, and operations. Guests face similar difficulty and fragmentation when trying to secure a table at a popular restaurant. The irony is obvious. The same restaurant that feels impossible to book may also be spending thousands of dollars to attract the right customers through Instagram reels, influencer meals, paid promotions, and countless other marketing channels. Demand exists. Attention exists. Intent exists. But the system connecting all of it is fragmented. A modern, technology-enabled hospitality ecosystem should make extraordinary experiences easier to discover, access, and share, while still preserving the curation and sense of belonging that make them valuable in the first place. I believe in a world where two competing restaurants can send guests to each other, and get paid for doing so. I believe in a world where I can arrive in any city in the world, and have the same access and recognition as I do back home. Open walls always beat closed clubs and quite frankly, are a lot more fun. We don’t need to break the walls, we simply need to build the highways that interconnect them. PRIMA is doing just that."

How do you achieve balance there? How do you modernize access without diminishing what makes those venues special?

AZ: “They should still be exclusive. Certain places have a specific energy that only exists because the room is carefully curated. The best operators understand this deeply and have built their reputations by knowing exactly how to create that balance. The problem begins once a venue becomes truly successful. When demand exceeds supply every night, the process starts to break down. Operators spend hours responding to VIP guests, managing large parties, handling special requests, and coordinating bookings weeks or months in advance. Much of that still happens through text messages, WhatsApp, group chats, Instagram DMs, and the same tools we use for personal communication. That may work when demand is manageable, but it does not scale. PRIMA is built to fix that without destroying what makes these venues special. The crowd should still be curated. The right guests should have an easier way to get in, and the people responsible for curating the room should have a better system for doing it.”

Many of today’s luxury consumers increasingly value access over ownership. Do you see hospitality becoming part of that broader shift toward experience as status?

AZ: “Experience is status. For luxury consumers, the old markers of status are becoming less important than access, belonging, and ease. True achievement is not just owning something rare. It is feeling like you belong in any room, anywhere in the world. Hospitality sits at the center of that shift. The modern luxury consumer wants access to the right restaurants, hotels, clubs, wellness experiences, cultural moments, and local communities without friction. They want the world to open around them in a way that feels personal, curated, and effortless. That is where the industry is headed. A modern, technology-enabled hospitality ecosystem should make extraordinary experiences easier to discover, access, and share, while still preserving the curation and sense of belonging that make them valuable in the first place.”

From an operator’s standpoint, has the definition of a VIP changed over the past decade?

AZ: “The definition of a VIP has changed dramatically. A true VIP is not only the person who spends the most money. It is anyone who creates meaningful value for the business. That could be a high-spending guest, an influencer, a trusted local connector, a hotel concierge, or simply someone whose presence makes the room feel more ‘alive.’ The challenge for operators is knowing who those people are and understanding the value they actually create. Historically, that has been based on instinct, memory, and relationships. Those will always matter. But the modern operator also needs better data, better attribution, and better tools to see which guests drive revenue, influence, repeat visits, and reputation. It’s not that difficult to execute with the tools we have today.”

Hospitality has always been a people business. How do you introduce more technology without losing the human element that makes great hospitality memorable?

AZ: “The people do not need to change. Their tools need to be upgraded. It is 2026. We have advanced AI, robotics, autonomous technology, and machines doing things that would have seemed impossible a decade ago. Yet to book dinner at a great restaurant, you often still need to text someone and ask for a favor. That ‘someone’ is usually an operator, concierge, host, or relationship holder who is already stretched thin and trying to protect the little free time they have with their own family. Technology should not replace the human element in hospitality. It should protect it. PRIMA is designed to remove the friction, repetitive coordination, and manual back-and-forth so the people who make hospitality special have more time to actually be human. The goal is not less humanity. It is better tools, fewer interruptions, and more space for the moments that make great hospitality memorable.”

You've built companies before. What is fundamentally different about scaling a hospitality network versus scaling a traditional technology company?

AZ: “The first time I built a company at scale, it took us six years to reach $200 million in revenue. Everything had to be built from scratch, one line of code at a time. That world has changed. Today, technology can be deployed faster than ever. In some cases, you can build and launch an entire business in a matter of days. Like the PRIMA Experience , which was just launched in Ibiza - from idea to execution took 4 days. Technology is no longer the moat. Relationships, trust, distribution and access are.That is what makes scaling a hospitality network fundamentally different from scaling a traditional technology company. You are not just scaling software. You are building trust between operators and guests, and once this trust is established, the rest is smooth sailing.”