World Travel Market 2010

For the fifth consecutive year we have exhibited at this leading industry event. This year saw an increase of delegates by 10% on 2009, a larger excel centre and a completely new layout. Our brand new position within Global Village and a slightly larger stand put us in a prime location close to the Travel Technology area.
The Tiger team of 20 representatives walked the halls to meet hoteliers from all parts of the world accounting for over 150 pre-arranged meetings. Attendees were RateTiger branded with our annual sponsor of the lanyards for the name badges raising the visibility of our attendance throughout the venue.
With our new position on stand GV545 we had much more room and seating to accommodate hoteliers who wanted to discuss products and services or be given a demonstration of our RTSuite product line. Our exhibit was buzzing from the moment the doors opened to the moment they closed with Tiger Time being an effective end of day event. We ran a prize draw to win a very large tiger with people stuffing their business cards in the box to get their hands on the spectacular beast.
Visitors were very keen to get their eyes on the new guest review management tool that had been launched just a few days prior to WTM. RTSuite Review received a lot of interest over the four days; this was spurred by the fact that guest reviews online was the year’s hottest topic, with TripAdvisor stealing numerous large crowds for their presentations and discussions.
The team came away with successful smiles on their faces but with very tired eyes.  Now it’s time to prepare for the next largest event – ITB Berlin.

BAHA Conference and IT Exhibit, November 25th 2010

The BAHA Conference and IT Exhibit is a one-day annual conference of BAHA which is the UK’s leading educational organisation for professionals involved in financial management, revenue management and IT within the hospitality industry. British and international delegates attend to get an informed and cutting-edge view from an international line-up of inspirational experts, all recognised and respected in their own field, about the latest key financial, revenue and IT management issues and developments.

Another first for RateTiger with a very encouraging experience. The event had a high quality of hotel delegates comprising of Revenue Managers, Group Revenue Managers, Managing Directors, Financial Controllers, and IT Directors which made it a perfect audience for RateTiger. There were approximately 22 exhibitors (including IDEAS, Easy RMS, Rubicon, and XN) and 450 delegates.

The delegates received us very well due to the relevant content of some of the workshops and it gave us a great networking opportunity especially for small to medium sized groups.

This event has excellent potential especially as the organization repositions itself beyond accounts to include financial and revenue managers providing interesting and educational sessions on revenue management and channel management techniques


Casey Davy – Sales Manager UK
John Seaton – Sales Manager Global 

Phuket Hotel Show

The Asian Hospitality and Travel Show is a showcase of hotels selling their rooms to tour operators, who attended as buyers (1st – 3rd October 2010, Phuket

Over 100 hotels and resorts exhibited at the event therefore we had easy pray. They welcomed me to their stand for vibrant conversations on their sales strategies and what they were looking at achieving in 2011. Many however felt their manual process updates were effective to-date and the number of channels was not affecting the operations.

This is a good event to check on the status of the market and how it is performing. I look forward to revisiting in 12 months and seeing how the market has matured.

Kenneth Yeo (Mr)
Sales Manager, Asia Pacific

RateTiger presentation, Nice, France

With representatives looking after their own regional markets it’s important to occasionally stop and go local. I decided to host an Introduction to Channel Management event in Nice for hotels in the area to find out how they can further improve their online sales.

I invited three existing client hotels to host 13 hotels unfamiliar with channel management and RateTiger. It went very well, in the end my client hotels were doing most of the work by casually talking to the attendees about RateTiger and our premium channel manager.

On going to a more local level of sales activity it’s fascinating to see the level of knowledge and awareness of online sales and the impact the OTA environment has on bookings for hotels. It’s definitely important to continue to educate the industry on the possibilities of online sales and how to improve revenue. 

Stefan Casimir
Sales Manager France

ITB Asia – October 2010

This was the second year that RateTiger attended ITB Asia as exhibitors.The turnout was a good mix of hoteliers, technology companies, OTAs and tourism boards etc. Technology companies like Sabre, Travelport and couple of our competitors were also present this time. About 6,500 trade visitors, up by 5-8% from last year.  Our target, the Hotel exhibitors were 38% of the total exhibitors, which includes Hotel consortia groups, mid-range hotel chains, handful of International hotel chains & independent hotels in Asia, Middle East, India & some key EU cities.

Sudhir:  We were busy with meetings with hoteliers both on and off the booth. I met a lot of hotel groups this time with approx 25-30 new leads.  It was good to see those hotels where we already had a discussion about our products.  Yes, I am sure we covered all the hoteliers present in the show.

Angela: The turnout was good as most Hoteliers had heard or aware of Revenue/Channel Management distribution tool in place.  Our “Tiger Time” party was easy to manage as we have small crowd coming in staggered timings. Our GDS partners, Abacus, Sabre, Travelport/Galilio were our alliances and endorsing our products to Hoteliers. OTAs & Media partners gave us an extra helping hand by introducing hoteliers to us.

This has been a busy time for the Asia sales team with four key travel trade events occurring in close succession; PATA, ITB Asia, WTM and CITM with some hoteliers dropping off ITBAsia and PATA.

Sudhir Ghildiya & Angela Wong
Asia-Pacific Sales Team

Presentation at hotel school, 20 October 2010

At RateTiger, we see ourselves not only as technology providers. Besides offering state-of-the-art software solutions, our aim is to educate the hotel industry comprehensively about online distribution and marketing, pricing strategies and revenue management. We are hotelier’s consultants rather than a mere software supplier. Hence, we have been offering intensive training, seminars and workshops to hotel practitioners from the start. Moreover, considering today’s students are tomorrow’s hotel managers, we believe it is key to educate the future generation as early as possible, that is, while they’re still at hotel school or university. However, whilst many teachers are open for new developments and keen to offer their students first-hand-insights into digital trends, others aren’t willing to change a long-taught curriculum, which would force them to learn something new themselves. Hamburg’s ‘Hotelfachschule’, in Germany’s north, is happy to have a teacher of the former category.

This teacher, Ansgar Jahns, believes in a practical approach to hotel studies. In his course, students learn about sales and revenue strategies, while concurrently using their new knowledge to analyse two renowned hotels that participate in this project. He has also invited RateTiger to give an overview about the online hotel market and its risks and chances; to inform about the necessities in channel management and benchmarking; and to present our products. Following this invitation, Ulf G. Guldi, RateTiger’s Sales Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, took the trip to Hamburg.

On 20 October, 11 students in their 20s and early 30s, all of which have finished an apprenticeship in a hotel earlier and are now studying for two years to finish a BA in Hotel Business, proved as keen listeners and willing to discuss figures, tricks and trends. Even the school’s director did us the honour and not only welcomed us at the door, but also attended the first half of the session, eager to learn himself. Ulf’s overall overview about the development of online bookings and OTAs was followed by an expert introduction to channel management and its techniques. A lively discussion followed, during which many students compared Ulf’s information to the experiences gained at different hotels. A former hotel pro himself, Ulf had a lot of tales and anecdotes to tell, from his times as Sales Director for various renowned hotel brands. After a necessary break, the students got introduced to RateTiger’s software solution RTSuite. By means of a product demonstration, Ulf presented the features of RateTiger’s benchmarking tool Shopper and the channel management system Allocator. Once more, many questions followed and lead to a productive discussion. Ulf’s resumes: “It’s been great to see the interest of the new generation! They have a strong desire to learn about the online market and supportive technology. It’s a wonderful opportunity to share our knowledge and learn about their needs at the same time. We’ll certainly continue our aims to educate besides selling.”

Scheduled for 2, the session lasted 4,5 hours. All students stayed until the end despite their timetables and postponed work commitments where necessary.

University Hoteliers Conference 2010

The fourth edition of University Hoteliers Conference took place on 27th April 2010 at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain. The conference was focused on the application of technologies in the hotel sector and was broadcasted online by Hosteltur.com.

The main discussions focused on the challenges in tourism distribution with presentations and roundtable sessions on the role of direct distribution channels, its threats and opportunities, rate parity, offline and online marketing and revenue management.

I attended the event as a speaker on behalf of RateTiger and presented a session on the importance of unifying the message hoteliers want to deliver – focus on “the 3 C’s – Consistent rich Content across all Channels” and the need for maintaining Rate Parity. The idea was to encourage smart hoteliers to keep a laser sharp focus on the channels that are driving maximum return on investment.

Other discussions were focused around topics like the importance of active participation in social media to build brand reputation, focus on the growing need for mobile channel management and how hoteliers need to leverage rates across the internet and embrace new tools and technologies to stay ahead of the game.

An impressive lineup of speakers were gathered for this year’s event including executives from InterContinental Madrid Hotel (IHG Group), Laterooms.com, OciHotel, Marketing Surfers/Buzzturistic, Trivago, Hotel Auditorium, ITH, Hosteltur, CIAC Digital, Empresa Municipal Promoción de Madrid and UVE Digital.

Balázs Szentmáry, Revenue Manager InterContinental Madrid Hotel (IHG Group) remarked: “We must establish clear clauses in contracts signed with distributors and conditions of each rate. Reinforce this concept in the Hotel management through the right training and focus on the customer who still looks for value and not the rate conditions.’

Joan Roca, General Manager Laterooms.com Spain quipped on the importance of why hoteliers should keep online rate parity and mark-up parity. He concluded by saying, “Hotels have different rates every day but that cannot be an excuse for not maintaining rate parity across channels”.

During a round table, Jaime Lopez Chicheri, consultant and co-founder of Marketing Surfers and Buzzturistic referred to the increased need for synchronization between the revenue manager and marketing manager of a hotel to ensure that the hotel’s branding and pricing depicts the same image. If they communicate about impartial rates but keep different pricing on each channel, the entire strategy will be counterproductive, because the customer will feel deceived and will find it easier to express it.

The attendees found the conference which was jointly sponsored by RateTiger, ITH and Hosteltur, to be very educative and productive. I look forward to be back at this event next year. Catch my presentation on the Hosteltur video which discusses how companies should rethink their strategies and adapt ever more quickly to the circumstances in an ever changing environment.


Pilar Sanchez Aita is Sales Manager – Spain & Portugal at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. She is based out of Spain and can be reached at pilara@ratetiger.com

Czech Hotel Association Event 2009

In the last week of November (25th – 27th November 2009) I attended an event organized by the Czech Hotel Association. As a RateTiger representative I was eager to see the kind of turnout the event would witness and I am glad to say that it was not a dismal show. With over 260 member hotels and companies present, it provided a good opportunity to meet many hoteliers.

The event included three full day conference with networking evening parties. Some of the discussion topics included recent developments in global economy and its impact on Czech Republic, tourism market in the region as well as scenario in Czech hotel industry compared to the EU states and rest of the world. The presentation hosted by STR Global turned out to be really interesting allowing hoteliers to see how others have remained resilient in tough economic conditions.

Hotel Managers from different cities in Czech Republic were present at the event with a good section of them representing Prague. I met with many of them and was glad to hear they considered RateTiger to be a leading channel management solution provider and wanted to know about our new products and features.

Overall it was a great experience with excellent networking, lots of new contacts and the opportunity to create further awareness about the products. It was good to know the importance of the Hotel Association’s event given that various senior members from many hotels were there. I look forward to attending the event next year.

Aldona Kaczmarczyk is Sales Manager – Eastern Europe at eRevMax and is responsible for sale of RateTiger products in the region. Aldona can be reached at aldonak@ratetiger.com