Someone has fallen prey to the Tiger’s stealth, with their recent attemptto rattle the Tiger’s cage falling flat. Our Tiger’s growl is enough to scare them away!
The Tiger is indigenous to the global hospitality jungle and is considered the king by one and all. In a poll conducted by Animal Planet, the largest of the big cats was voted the world’s favorite animal.
It’s fierce and commanding rate attention ensures weaker predators are kept at bay. Smart hoteliers know that premium products deliver the right results. You cannot be cheap in offering Rate Parity as it is only one of many parameters.
The Tiger takes a noble and discerning approach to help his streak of hotel cubs maximize revenues in the growing e-marketplace.
This Tiger is your weapon to guest booking survival.
Earlier this month, I was in Houston to attend the International Convention organized by the National Business Travel Association, the leading Association for the corporate travel community. The event included a full schedule of educational seminars as well as an exhibition floor for travel buyers & sellers to interact.
I was excited to see a gathering of over 6000 attendees from all sectors of the corporate travel vertical including corporate travel executives, airlines, hotel groups, transportation companies, corporate travel management companies, meeting planners and technology companies.
The convention began with the announcement of NBTA’s plan to aggressively pursue a more global approach and its rechristening to Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). This was followed by educational sessions covering various aspects of corporate travel.
Key speakers focused on the recovery of the industry over the past 3 quarters with an expected increase in rates for 2011. One of the main topics of conversation was the increase in unbundled fees in the airline industry and the possible implementation of these in the hotel industry to give hotels the opportunity to increase revenues.
I found NBTA Convention to be the perfect platform to introduce RateTiger’s real-time hotel rate benchmarking tool – RTCorp to the corporate travel managers. The corporate travel industry is at a point where corporates need to be able to benchmark their contracted rates so that they can obtain the best possible rates for their companies.
Traditionally corporate travel managers used to contract their hotels once a year for the year. However with the advent of hotel yield management, hotel rates are changing consistently, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis. RTCorp gives travel managers the opportunity to evaluate their contracted rates against the OTA lowest published rates and provides them with the reports necessary to approach and re-contract their hotels.
Our presence at NBTA helped educate the travel managers as to the value of benchmarking their contracted rates against the OTA rates. Our direct meetings generated a lot of interest amongst the attendees and we found corporate travel managers understanding the need for a benchmarking tool to help them negotiate with their travel suppliers harder and get a better and open deal.
Overall it was a great experience and kudos to NBTA for putting together a very well organized and meaningful event. I look forward to attending the next convention but with a different name – the GBTA International Convention 2011 😉
Mark Neter is International Sales Manager at eRevMax. He is based out of US and can be reached at markn@ratetiger.com
The last day of June saw the Association of Hotels of Portugal (AHP) organizing a seminar on Hotel Distribution. It brought together a group of experts in the area of hotel distribution to advice hoteliers on best available tools and latest trends in hotel management, online distribution and channel management.
An increasing number of tourists make their hotel reservations via the Internet. Also though the economy is recuperating, it has not held back Portuguese people from traveling. According to “The Travels of the Portuguese in 2010” study conducted in May this year, the Portuguese say they want to travel at least once this year. This has further made hoteliers more optimistic about business and has enhanced the need to distribute online to ensure they get their fair share of bookings from this dynamic medium.
The seminar was therefore a great platform to present directly to owners and hotel managers, marketing managers and marketing directors who are the real decision makers. I conducted a presentation on RateTiger and the concept of our solutions which included the advantages of online distribution; how to distribute more and better without changing its structure; how to boost sales team and how to ensure price parity.
Other presenters included Zoover (Hotel Review sites and their importance); Viatecla (advantages of integrating review sites and how to monitor them) and Travelport/Galileo Portugal (GDS and Hotels). With over 60 hoteliers present it was just the perfect sized audience for making a strong presence amongst them.
Overall the seminar was excellent and very productive. I received a lot of questions which showed the interest level of the audience and I was also approached for more information on RateTiger products. I look forward to other sessions by AHP as these are quality events which are purely B2B and helps all involved find what they need.
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
The Publituris Portugal Travel Awards 2010, considered the “Oscars of Tourism in Portugal” took place on 18th June at the beautiful Tivoli Victoria Hotel in Vilamoura.
Our client, the elegant Internacional Design Hotel was conferred with the Best Four Star Hotel in Portugal title. The hotel’s design concept, great location and extraordinary customer service makes staying here a truly memorable experience for guests.
The impressive, classical facade reveals an exciting and contemporary interior. Each of the hotel’s four floors has a special theme inspired by world cultures. From minimalism and Zen to urban chic, pop art and African touches, each room is different with images, lighting, textures and colors creating a unique and stylish ambience.
Celso Terra Assunção (in picture left), Director of Internacional Design Hotel was present to collect the award. The event was superbly hosted by José Pedro Vasconcelos and also featured a concert by Rodrigo Leão & Cinema Ensemble. The Gala was attended by Bernardo Trindade, Secretary of State for Tourism.
We at RateTiger are pleased to have winners on our side and extend our warm wishes and congratulate every member of the Internacional Design Hotel for winning the coveted trophy and making this chic hotel a truly world class property.
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
After the launch of RateTiger Academy at ITB Berlin, we organized a couple of Distribution Day seminars this month. The first took place on 8th June in Frankfurt, Germany and the second on 15th June in London, UK.
My colleague Ulf Guldi accompanied our CEO Sascha Hausmann and a couple of Xotels members for the German seminar; while I was at the London session which had our International Sales VP Keith Povah addressing the attendees.
The concept behind RateTiger Academy is to help hoteliers gain better control over travel channels in changing markets including pricing techniques, revenue management, competitor strategies and distribution management.
The Distribution Day was a full day programme focused on helping hoteliers to optimize their online and offline hotel distribution channels. The seminar focused on bringing renewed insight in today’s hotel distribution landscape and provided alternative techniques and ideas that can help to increase and optimize revenues and profits.
The highlights included importance of online and offline business, marketing power of individual channels, cost of distribution & channel contribution and distribution power / yielding opportunities.
We planned to have a maximum 25 members for each session but the London seminar got a great response and we had 27 attendees. The session was very fruitful for the hoteliers and we received a lot of positive feedback. They were very happy with all the information and knowledge sharing on revenue management and online distribution concepts and available technologies.
The newly opened H10 Hotel in Waterloo, London proved to be the perfect location for the seminar. The Distribution Day turned out to be a very fulfilling experience for the attendees as well as the organizing team from eRevMax and Xotels.
Casey Davy is Sales Manager – UK at eRevMax. He is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. Casey is based out of London and can be reached at caseyd@ratetiger.com
Hilton Frankfurt witnessed an interesting event on 14th June when the HSMA Pricing & Distribution Day 2010 took off. The forum aimed to inform members about the latest developments, trends and innovations in hotel pricing and distribution.
I was happy with the structure of this full day event as it allowed members to attend sessions that were relevant for them. The day started off with the welcome address by HSMA Germany chief, which was followed by key note sessions on Market view: Cycles of hotel prices and the impact of the VAT reduction and Hotel vision – future requirements of the hotel industry.
The rest of the event was neatly segregated into three parallel sessions – Pricing, Revenue Management and Distribution. Each session had three topics with expert speakers.
I attended the Distribution forum which started off with CRM Reloaded presented by Anton Hell, CEO hit-CONSULT GmbH. This was followed by a session on Tour operators – Ideas and proposals for pricing contracts with broadcasters, by Peter Neuschel, MD, Agency Neuschel GmbH. The session concluded with a presentation by RateTiger CEO Sascha Hausmann on Channel Management – Yes or no? The session went off really well with many older hoteliers becoming interested in channel management and requesting further details on our solutions.
The day could not have been better with me getting a chance to liaise directly with many hoteliers, revenue managers as well as sales and marketing heads. We received some good reviews about our products and our interactions helped increase the industry’s awareness about the developments and upgradation in RateTiger solutions.
Ulf Guldi is Sales Manager – Germany at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. He is based out of Cologne and can be reached at ulfg@ratetiger.com
The German Hotel Association [Hotelverband Deutschland (IHA)] recently organized its Annual Conference from 9 – 11 June in Adendorf, one of the oldest and most beautiful parts of Germany.
Expert sessions on latest developments in the field of Channel Management, Metasearch and Direct bookings, Web Tourism 3.0, Social Media and Mobile trends had packed audiences. Since channel management was one of the key topics, it gave me an opportunity to present RateTiger as the specialist in the field with solutions ranging from benchmarking, allocation to revenue management. This helped raise the level of awareness about RateTiger among the hoteliers present. Listeners became prospects and prospects converted to customers.
The IHA-Get-Together and the Gala evening were culinary delights which fostered networking in a relaxed atmosphere. I really enjoyed attending this well planned event and with good key note speakers and relevant topics, the value of this event increased manifold. With over 150 hoteliers, it was definitely an event worth attending.
Ulf Guldi is Sales Manager – Germany at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. He is based out of Cologne and can be reached atulfg@ratetiger.com
Recently, I had an opportunity to be at Santiago de Compostela, a World Heritage City, and the capital of Galicia in Spain. I was there to attend the eleventh edition of the CEHAT Congress, the Spanish Hotel Association’s bi-annual conference for the hospitality industry.
Being a significant association, CEHAT gets its share of importance and its events are well attended by members as well as the media. The Congress attracted an attendance of over 350 this year. The opening ceremony was conducted by the Minister for Galician Tourism, Carmen Pardo Lopez; President of CEHAT, Juan Molas, and the President of the Hotel Association of Galicia, Hector Cañete del Campo.
During his speech, Juan Molas laid stress on the importance of public – private collaboration to take the industry forward and to help it emerge from the current economic situation. Some of the topics which garnered a lot of attention were “Is the tourism sector in a recession?” and “Analysis of the current situation and its impact on the hospitality industry”. Given the relevance of the two topics, these turned out to be the crowd pullers.
The first topic – “Is the tourism sector in a recession?” had the President of Hotusa, Amancio López Seijas sharing his comment – ‘the tourism sector has a young and dynamic business network, and is capable of pushing globalization and that is their best hope.’ The other speakers in this session were Marisol Turro, President of Sercotel and Alfonso Castellanos, CEO of Mindproject, while it was moderated by Carlos Diaz, VP of CEHAT. The panel discussed numerous issues, including the fragmentation of the sector and the inevitable process of concentration which is working, training and the need for labor reform, the relationship with distribution channels, the role of government, the risks of competing in prices and the importance of tending to specialization, the oversupply or depletion model of “sun and beach”.
The other important discussion was on ‘Analysis of the current situation and its impact on the hospitality industry’. Here the speakers included former Treasury minister, Carlos Solchaga, and the President of the Council of Chambers, Javier Gómez Navarro. Both agreed that while the number of passengers and occupancy figures this summer will look like the high season of 2009, the room rates will show a different graph as it is expected to continue falling, and therefore comparison of the margins may not be positive.
The CEHAT Congress is a must attend event for RateTiger and I will ensure I am around here in each edition. I had the opportunity to set-up meetings with many Hotel Groups, Associations and Independent Hotels and it provided an unparallel business platform to foster long-term relationships and also strengthen the unique relationship RateTiger has with CEHAT as members.
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
ITB Berlin 2010 has kicked-off to an excellent start as our CEO completes a contract of partnership with Micros as RateTiger technologies further integrates with Micros Opera suite to provide channel management features. Our sales managers have also been bouncing around the very large exhibition centre meeting with hotels chains and property owners to display the wide-range of services RateTiger provides.
This year we are also providing support to manage Advertising campaigns with our special partner TravelScream; hoteliers seem to be lapping this up while trying to get their head around how we are integrating all their processes into one – their eyes often beam when we say that as they realise how much time they will save.
Our RTSchool is being received with great interest, the Distribution Days in May and June will help hoteliers understand and get a greater grasp of multi-channel sales through a programme exploring channel management in changing markets with Xotels.
This year we have installed a large and impressive touch-screen display on our stand in hall 8.1 which is currently running the RateTiger iPhone application. Those RateTiger team members with an iPhone are proudly and excitedly presenting it to all delegates visiting us.
There is a constant stream of attendees through the Technology Hall all of which are at least pausing by the RateTiger stand in interest. It seems this is the year of channel management – we are all really feeling it, suddenly hoteliers truly understand how these technologies work and the necessity for them.
Ryan Haynes is the Marketing Head at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities of RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at ryanh@ratetiger.com
Organized at St. Petersburg/Clearwater from January 24 through to January 26, 2010, Florida Huddle turned out to be a great event for me.
The event focuses completely on buyer-supplier meetings and is a good platform to meet prospective buyers and close deals. A new segment called the Travel Service Provider has now been incorporated as well. However they need to clearly define the requisites to qualify as supplier and /or travel service provider.
The discussions at the event revolved around the current economic scenario, similar to the OHV agenda. Hoteliers in Florida too are driving occupancy and not ADR. More than 165 hoteliers were present in the total gathering of 200 plus visitors and all were eager to find out the best way to take prices up again.
From the business perspective, presence at Florida Huddle is always lucrative as it allows decision makers from the buyer and supplier sides to meet directly and cut deals. RateTiger too signed many new contracts at the event and it was a very successful event for all involved.
Siobhain McArdle is Sales Manager for south eastern states of USA at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. She is based out of Florida and can be reached at siobhainm@ratetiger.com
