Hotel Group Connectivity – Page 2 – Get the Best Hotel Channel Manager Tips from RateTiger

August 16, 2019January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 3

In five minutes or less, keep track of the most important news of the week, curated just for you. We present to you hand – picked news on latest industry perspectives and some general updates. Read on!!

Business Travel in Europe on the rise: Are you ready?

According to American Express Global Business Travel report, the spend on business travel in Europe in 2019 is expected to grow by over 4.3% making it a focus area for hotels. Here are some suggested channels you need to have in your distribution mix for landing more corporate bookings.

Deep dive into APAC online travel agencies – Part 2

With increasing disposable income and expanding tourism, Asia Pacific has become the fastest-growing regional travel market. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, five of the world’s ten fastest growing tourism cities are in Asia, making it the hot spot for the travel marketers. Propelled by high penetration of mobile, the region has been witnessing double digit growth in online booking, making it a priority region for global OTAs. However, the market is still dominated by local and regional players, even as global OTAs make strategic investments to make inroads.

In our series on Online Travel Channels in APAC, we have looked into major players shaping the digital travel space. In the first article of the series, we have discussed the giants in the region – Agoda, Ctrip and Make My Trip and their secret sauce to success. In this second part, we will be focussing on local players who are dominating the online travel space in their respective regions.

Fliggy

Fliggy (formerly known as AliTrip) – the travel booking site from Alibaba, is an important player in the China focusing on the upmarket segment – particularly the travel aspiring millennials and international travellers. Of the 10 million daily active users on Fliggy, 80 percent are millennials with college degree living on tier-1 and tier-2 cities – giving the platform a unique exposure and reach. Alibaba has also positioned it as a “premium” travel booking site focusing on outbound travel. The site is designed as youthful, refined, geared toward long-haul, leisure, experiential, as well as luxury trips, rather than the usual to short-term or domestic business travel. From its partnership with Marriot group to getting Booking.com to launch a flagship store on its platform, Fliggy has been making a series of strategic partnerships to create a global brand. Leveraging Alibaba’s ecosystem, which is used by 699 million mobile monthly active users, the platform is positioning itself as a travel marketplace covering the 360 degree of travel to provide consumers with better travel products and service experience. This means a traveller with high purchasing power can plan and book their travel on Fliggy, buy additional items necessary for travel from Alibaba owned e-commerce site Taobao while using Alipay for transactions, ensuring a seamless user experience throughout.

Rakuten Travel

Japan’s online leisure/unmanaged business travel market is the second largest in Asia Pacific region. Founded in 2002, Rakuten Travel is one of Japan’s largest online hotel reservation website with over 3.7 million room nights booked per month. The channel receives 5.34 million unique visitors every month. The firm has access to more than 20,000 domestic and 15,000 international hotels and has a presence in South Korea and China. Rakuten Travel, which is the most popular OTA in Japan, is owned by Rakuten Group, which provides more than 70 e-commerce services beyond travel. The group, often compared with Amazon connects services within its ecosystem enabling users to access all services within the system by using a single login ID, and the same loyalty program for a seamless experience. The company has invested heavily into artificial intelligence and big data for understanding changing consumer behavior and effective personalization.

Traveloka

Traveloka, one of late entrants in the market and founded by three friends in Indonesia, is one of the biggest success stories in the online travel space in South Asia. The channel which offers flights, hotels, trains, tours & activities, transfers and packages is present in Southeast Asia’s six primary markets — Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. With the introduction of PayLater, an online credit system without the need for a credit card, Traveloka is poised to make further inroads into the region where relatively low penetration of credit / debit card has remained a hindrance to online payment. The channel is also actively pushing into the lifestyle category and has recently rolled out a discovery platform featuring restaurant and wellness activities. The Traveloka mobile app has been downloaded more than 30 million times, making it the most popular travel booking app in the region. With Expedia’s investment into the channel making it the first billion-dollar start-up in Indonesia, the company has been adding more products and services including bundles to mobile applications to make it a one-stop-shop for customers to book and redeem travel themselves.

As hoteliers, are you ready to tap into the Asia Pacific market? Are you managing these channels well and keeping them automatically updated with rates and availability on a regular basis?

Reach out to us for your connectivity needs to make the most of your online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

May 10, 2019January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – May 2019 Week 2

eRevMax expands in Indonesia with new demand partner

Indonesia based Hoterip.com, one of the fastest growing online travel agencies in Asia, has completed two-way XML integration with travel technology specialist eRevMax to offer online channel management and reservation delivery solution to its growing base of hotel customers. The seamless interface will allow hotels using RateTiger and RTConnect platforms to update rates and availability and receive reservations generated through the channel in real-time

https://www.erevmax.com/ratetiger-news/ratetiger-news-archive/may2019-erevmax-expands-in-indonesia-with-new-demand-partner.html

Online Reviews Still Important But Craze is Slowing Down

Revinate published their 2019 Global Hotel Reputation Benchmark Report, filled with insights to help travel marketers compare and optimize their own online reputation management approach. Google gas overtaken Booking in the #1 position, as both sites are now dominating the field, with TripAdvisor coming in as distant third. While 74% of reviews were posted on four sites in 2017, a greater percentage is now contentrated in only the top 3 – Google, Booking and TripAdvisor.

https://fredericgonzalo.com/en/2019/04/10/online-reviews-still-important-but-craze-is-slowing-down/

Hotel industry has to invest more in technology

For some, the hotel industry requires a fundamentally different notion to how it sells and packages merchandise, physical goods and experiences.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/295159/Hotel-tech-execs-call-for-industry-to-invest-partner

Customer loyalty in a hyper-segmented hotel landscape

While many hotel branding companies have recently announced reforms in their rewards structures, their programs are still primarily based on a point redemption system.

https://www.hotel-online.com/press_releases/release/customer-loyalty-in-a-hyper-segmented-hotel-landscape#When:18:20:44Z

Webinar: Drive loyalty through a personalized journey

In this webinar, experts from leading hospitality and hotel tech companies will share their insights and strategies on how to enhance customer loyalty.

https://try.traveltripper.com/celebrate-and-nurture-your-guests-webinar/?utm_source=hotelmarketing&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=nurture-your-guest-webinar&utm_content=landing-page

What impact Airbnb might have on the hotel industry in another recession

In 2008, Airbnb was only just launching and really wasn’t a major player, however things may be a little different the next time around, as consumers booking habits have changed and their accommodation preferences have evolved.

https://www.kalibrilabs.com/demystifying-distribution/2019/5/7/what-impact-might-airbnb-have-on-the-hotel-industry-in-another-recession/?ref=hotelmarketing_com

Corporate travel: Sabre survey reveals trends shaping booking behaviour in Asia Pacific

Sabre reveals the results of a survey that compiles insight from over 70 corporate travel management companies (TMCs) from across Asia Pacific, revealing the latest trends in terms of regional bookings.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sabre-corporate-travel-survey-reveals-trends-shaping-booking-behavior-in-asia-pacific-300843880.html

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March 20, 2019

Indonesian aparthotel improves online sales with eRevMax

The Malibu Suites – Balikpapan, an Indonesian aparthotel has improved its online sales with efficient rate and availability management through RateTiger. The property offering 35 serviced apartments in Borneo Balikpapan, has been using RateTiger Channel Manager since 2018 to manage all its online distribution channels in real-time.

Managed by Sissae Living, the Malibu Suites, has begun its operations in the business town of Borneo Balikpapan in February 2018. Primarily catering to business travellers, it is important for the property to connect with leading global and regional OTAs for maximum exposure. Prior to RateTiger, the Malibu Suites was managing the OTAs manually.

“It was difficult to distribute and manage rate and availability across channels. We also wanted to connect with more channels to improve our visibility,” said Frank Inakoe, Director, The Malibu Suites by Sissae Living.

Recommended by their Booking Engine provider, the Malibu Suites signed up for RateTiger Channel Manager in mid-2018. The cloud-based solution hosted on LiveOS, is helping the revenue management team to update rate and inventory (ARI) across all connected travel channels and receive reservations directly into their hotel management system. They are also monitoring their booking and production performance in real-time from the dashboard.

“With RateTiger, we found an easy way to manage our room availability and rates across all our channels from a single dashboard. The 24 hours support is always there for any assistance we need,” commented Frank.

March 8, 2019January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – March 2019 Week 2

Airbnb acquires HotelTonight

Airbnb agrees to acquire last-minute hotel-booking app HotelTonight. As Airbnb gears up for its big leap into the public markets, it’s expanding its accommodations platform to include more than just treehouses and quirky homes.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/07/airbnb-agrees-to-acquire-last-minute-hotel-booking-app-hoteltonight/

Top 10 fastest-growing European destinations for Chinese tourists

Europe is now the second largest destination for Chinese tourists after Asia, according to a new report by Huacheng International Travel Co., Ltd

http://www.china.org.cn/top10/2019-03/07/content_74530702.htm

3 keys to meeting customer expectations in 2019

Some 63% of people expect brands to use their purchase history to provide them with personalized experiences. One recent study even noted that a full 83% of Millennials said they would let travel brands track their digital patterns if it would provide them with a more personalized experience.

https://bit.ly/2CbhO5f

Booking.com launches BookingSuite app store

The BookingSuite App Store presents handpicked solutions from hospitality software providers in a number of different categories, to make finding the right solutions for a property’s business quick and easy.

https://suite.booking.com/blog/app-store/

TripAdvisor plots inspiration path in Google’s shadow

TripAdvisor debuted its new homepage at the end of last year with the hope of making the platform more relevant to users and, presumably, helping it make more money in the process.

https://skift.com/2019/03/06/tripadvisor-plots-inspiration-path-in-googles-shadow/

How resorts are tapping into personalized pricing without using personal data

Resorts are achieving personalized pricing without the need for such personal data from the consumer, and they are doing this at very granular levels thanks to some revenue science and strategy.

https://ideas.com/resorts-personalized-pricing/

Trivago shares insights into behavior of travelers on its metasearch platform

A new report by Trivago shares insights into traveler’s hotel search behavior on its platform.

The in-depth data analysis examines when trivago users search for a hotel, which factors narrow down their search options, what prices they pay, how much they are prepared to pay, and their hotel-stay patterns.

https://businessblog.trivago.com/industry-insights-traveler-profile/

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

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February 1, 2019January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – February 2019 Week 1

eRevMax completes integration with Portugal based Newhotel PMS

Hotel connectivity solution provider eRevMax has completed 2-way integration with Newhotel Software, a global hospitality technology company headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal. Mutual hotel customers can leverage this integration to update rate and availability to third party online booking sites whenever they are updated in the property management system and receive reservations from OTAs.

https://www.erevmax.com/ratetiger-news/ratetiger-news-archive/jan2019-erevmax-completes-integration-portugal-based-newhotel-pms.html

2019: Time to relook at your Hotel Cancellation Policies

For a long time, hotel industry has been fairly flexible with the cancellation policies. However, with the popularity of meta-search sites, even after booking, consumers now keep track of room rates. Whenever there is a drop in the room rates of the booked hotel or it’s competing properties, guests often cancel their existing reservations and rebook.

This high cancellation rate especially closer to the arrival has a major impact on the hotel’s revenue management decision where often inflated estimation of potential occupancy level leads to sub-optimal rates and lost revenue.

https://www.erevmax.com/blog/index.php/2019/01/2019-time-to-relook-at-your-hotel-cancellation-policies/

Hotel sales and marketing trends to watch in 2019

Sales and marketing is a constantly evolving discipline within the hotel industry, and some experts in the field recently shared their takes on what to expect heading into 2019.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/292059/Hotel-sales-and-marketing-trends-to-watch-in-2019

Corporate hotel loyalty programmes may drive adoption

A recent survey of European business travellers reveals that 43 per cent would be motivated to book a hotel with which their company has a corporate loyalty account if it guaranteed better rates. The research by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) in partnership with Accorhotels found 80 per cent of travel buyers said their company is not enrolled in a corporate hotel loyalty scheme. However, 60 per cent would be interested in joining one for lodging purposes, with 85 per cent saying they find the dedicated room rates offered to travellers appealing.

https://buyingbusinesstravel.com/news/3129841-corporate-hotel-loyalty-programmes-may-drive-adoption

Guests Demand a 21st Century Stay

Guests expect reliability, ease and security when they activate their mobile room key and unlock the door. Behind that satisfying click, however, is a complex integration of separate technologies and software. Mobile access architecture comprises four parts: 1) the property system, 2) the secure mobile credential and delivery management system, 3) the app and 4) the door lock.

https://www.hotelbusiness.com/guests-demand-a-21st-century-stay-2/

Are hotels on the verge of a parity nightmare?

Booking.com appears to have rolled out its Booking.Basic feature to European hotel listings, six months after it was first spotted on listings for hotels in Asia. Booking.Basic is an accommodation tier that periodically appears on Booking.com’s hotel listings when the rate provided to Booking.com is not the cheapest available online. The rates it offers are nonrefundable and made via a third party that is only revealed to guests after they have paid to book a room.

https://www.phocuswire.com/booking-basic-triptease

Will Chinese technology give hoteliers a fat problem this Year of the Pig?

Technology is a major barrier for hoteliers when dealing with the Chinese market. At the core of the problem is the fact that the technology platforms they are used to using are all entirely different from ours. They can´t access Google, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even WhatsApp.

https://www.travolution.com/articles/110128/will-chinese-technology-give-hoteliers-a-fat-problem-this-year-of-the-pig

Hotelbeds adds price and availability insight to its MaxiRoom hotel extranet

Leading global accommodation wholesaler Hotelbeds revealed new features for MaxiRoom, its free hotel extranet designed to maximise hotel occupancy through its distribution channels.

More than 60,000 out of the 170,000 hoteliers who work with Hotelbeds are connected through either technology platforms or direct integrations, the firm said. That figure has doubled in the last three years

https://www.travolution.com/articles/110116/hotelbeds-adds-price-and-availability-insight-to-its-maxiroom-hotel-extranet

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue- https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

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September 5, 2018

eRevMax completes integration with IDS Next PMS

Interface to allow automatic distribution of rate and availability to OTAs for mutual customers

Hotel connectivity expert eRevMax has completed integration with leading hospitality technology solution provider IDS Next. Mutual hotel customers can now get the benefit of automatic distribution of availability and rate to third party online booking sites whenever they are updated in the property management system and receive reservations from OTAs.

India based IDS Next’s ERP solution, FortuneNEXT, caters to over 4500+ hotels in 40 countries spread across South Asia, South-East Asia, Africa, Middle East, Sri Lanka & Maldives and Oceania. eRevMax’s distribution solutions, RateTiger Channel Manager and RTConnect are used by over 9000 hotels to manage their online sales channels including OTAs, metasearch, GDS and wholesalers.

“IDS Next is delighted with this new partnership, which will offer an additional choice for channel managers to our customers and prospects. By connecting our PMS to RateTiger solution, our hotel customers can take advantage of the power of eRevMax’s superior connectivity to expand their reach and improve online sales,” said Jacob K I, Vice President – Business Development, IDS Next.

“This interface with IDS Next PMS, one of the leading property management systems in APAC, Middle East and Africa region, complements our continuous effort to provide hoteliers technology that makes hotel businesses easier to manage and more profitable. The secure XML connection eliminates the need for any manual intervention, allowing hotel managers to focus on key aspects like strategy and guest engagement,” said Ashis Saha, SVP – Project Management, eRevMax.

eRevMax offers seamless connectivity with over 350 OTAs and 90 technology providers. The company is developing its connectivity solutions to offer sophisticated real-time revenue management functionality to the hospitality industry. This includes solutions for the independent market and scaling up through the Tier One enterprise hotel groups. eRevMax’s Channel Ecosystem facilitates quality certified connectivity and relationship management services to support complex revenue generation strategies.

About IDS Next:

IDS Next Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd is a globally leading hotel technology solutions provider with decades of unmatched domain expertise. Being pioneers in Hotel ERP architecture, the company’s forte lies in providing unparalleled technology solutions for hospitality properties across categories. With unrivalled domain expertise, its USP lies in creating solutions that help hotels increase revenues, optimize costs and above all provide enhanced guest experience.

IDS Next fully understands emerging markets, and its high growth needs. IDS Next’s offerings include integrated hotel management software, restaurant management software, mobile apps and mobile analytic solutions, etc.

IDS Next’s software and technology solutions have earned the trust of over 4500 plus hotels in 40 countries spread across South Asia, South-East Asia, Africa, Middle East, Oceania, Sri Lanka & Maldives. A truly dedicated 24/7 support centre ensures 98% retention of customers and unmatched customer satisfaction.

August 17, 2018January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – August 2018 Week 3

Luxury hotel in Ghana recommends RateTiger for online distribution

The Royal Senchi Hotel & Resort, a luxury property in Ghana has recommended RateTiger for streamlining online distribution. The hotel has experienced significant improvement in their operational efficiency leveraging RateTiger’s cloud based channel manager and on-demand shopping tool.

https://goo.gl/m7LUN2

Google says it’s time for travel marketers to rethink loyalty

Attitudinal loyalty relates to how loyal a traveler feels, and behavioral loyalty refers to how loyal a traveler acts.

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/travel-marketing-strategy/

Introducing RateTiger GDS – Your window to 600,000 travel agents worldwide.

Distribute your room and availability across various global distribution systems – Amadeus, Sabre & Travelport (Galileo & Worldspan) from RateTiger platform.

Chinese millennials’ travel expenditure increases by 80% YoY

Hotels.com research has revealed that Chinese millennials (born after 1990) are pushing the boundaries of international travel, increasing their expenditure in the past year by a staggering 80%. This is to fund social media-influenced trips full of edgy experiences, high-tech accommodation, exotic delicacies and taboo ticket-items.

https://www.traveldailymedia.com/chinese-millennials-expenditure-up-80/

Privacy vs security: first fines reveal shift in data protection landscape

Over two months since ‘GDPR Day’, most organisations are still successfully processing personal data, but travel companies beware. With regulation now enforceable, consumers more empowered and security – a small part of GDPR – becoming an increasing focus, the Information Commissioner’s Office is keen to show it has teeth. Since May, several fines have been levied against companies making everything from annoying sales calls to not being rigorous with privacy and security.

https://goo.gl/FSfkhq

How TripAdvisor changed travel

TripAdvisor used to promise its users a kind of escape, whether that be simply daydreaming over a vacation or actually booking one. Yet at a moment where such adages now seem horribly outdated, the future of TripAdvisor and similar enterprises seems less certain than it once did.

http://hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/how_tripadvisor_changed_travel

Worldwide Distribution Trends for Meta Search Engines report from Fornova highlights direct booking challenges for hotels

Fornova, a leading provider of distribution intelligence and automation solutions to hotels, have released their first Meta Search Engines Distribution Trends report.The report analyses and highlights key challenges hotels face when participating on Meta Search Engines, and how their efforts compare when competing against their partner Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and other resellers online.

http://blog.fornova.com/worldwide-distribution-trends-for-meta-search-engines-report

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue.
https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!

August 16, 2018

Luxury hotel in Ghana recommends RateTiger for online distribution

Located in Akosombo, a resort town near Ghanaian capital Accra, the The Royal Senchi Hotel & Resort, with its 84 rooms, caters to primarily leisure tourists. eRevMax’s XML connectivity with global and regional OTAs, GDSs and Metas have made it possible for the revenue management team to manage their OTAs, GDS and booking engine from LiveOS dashboard.

“It was easy when we’re handling just the booking engine. The real challenge came when we signed up with several OTAs – updating multiple extranets and consolidating reports from these channels manually was time-taking and taking a toll on our efficiency. RateTiger by eRevMax has solved it all. With just one entry I can update all OTAs simultaneously from the dashboard. It also gives me the data I want at one go with a simple click,” said Bennett Attakorah, Rooms Division Manager, The Royal Senchi Hotel & Resort.

“Providing hotels with stable connectivity remained our priority for the last 17 years. RateTiger and LiveOS have been built with a vision to make online sales simpler for hotels, and this recommendation is a testimony to that,” said Ram Mohan Dubey, Regional Sales Director, eRevMax.

August 10, 2018January 28, 2020

The Week, That Was – August 2018 Week 2

Luxury Ukrainian Hotel Leopolis Improves Revenue with RateTiger

Leopolis Hotel, a landmark Ukrainian hotel has successfully optimized online distribution connectivity to improve their hotel occupancy and revenue, by leveraging RateTiger.

https://goo.gl/ES1Cdy

Trivago makes data on global hotel pricing trends more accessible to hoteliers

Global hotel metasearch trivago records hotel price shifts from over 400 booking sites for over 2 million hotels and alternative accommodations around the world in its Hotel Price Index.

Learn more about Rate Insights- https://businessblog.trivago.com/trivago-hotel-price-index/

Google Hotel Ads launches Promoted Hotels

Google has launched a pilot test with a reduced number of partners and it will soon be open to more participants. Since it is a new advertising space, despite being in a well-known environment, it generates new demand for the direct channel, competing with other hotels and other sellers

https://goo.gl/RXvfyd

Top tips to maximise ROI without compromising on the customer experience

Business will always be about the bottom line, but if personalised, functional service that gets the job done according to customer expectations and preferences come first, the rest should ultimately follow.

https://insights.ehotelier.com/insights/2018/08/09/top-tips-to-maximise-roi-without-compromising-on-the-customer-experience/

Booking Holdings closely monitoring paid channels as it builds direct strategy

Booking Holdings says its continuing on its strategy to increase its direct business as it reported earnings for the second quarter of 2018. Booking Holdings also continues to build its travel offering through the development of its alternative accommodation platform, which now offers about 5.5 million listings of homes, apartments and other units.

https://www.phocuswire.com/Booking-Holdings-Q2-earnings-2018

How online payment trends are impacting the travel industry

The world of online payments is undergoing a rapid transformation. Whereas once customers had scant options – primarily credit cards and bank transfers – to make bookings over the internet, they now have an ever-expanding choice of 21st-century technology, from PayPal to MobilePay.

https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-payments-evolution

Connect with us for your connectivity needs to make the most of online revenue.
https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

Thanks and have a good day!