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The Week, That Was – October 2019 Week 4

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!!

Argentina based Europlaza Hotel & Suites recommends eRevMax for channel connectivity

Europlaza Hotel & Suites, a midscale hotel in the heart of Buenos Aires has recommended eRevMax solutions for managing online distribution. The property has been using RateTiger Channel Manager since 2014 to maintain real-time rate and availability across multiple online sales channels and receive reservations.

https://bit.ly/2BFN2ki

How to Promote Your Hotel to Business Travelers?

Business travelers form one of the major groups of travelers, and this group is increasing with time. Expenses on global business travel are expected to rise by 7% by the year 2020, which means hoteliers have to go that extra mile to attract business travelers to their properties.

https://www.erevmax.com/blog/index.php/2019/10/how-to-promote-your-hotel-to-business-travelers/

TripAdvisor jumps on the hotel direct booking bandwagon

TripAdvisor is introducing a direct-booking feature to its Sponsored Placements product for accommodation providers designed to help them boost revenue. With the new feature, sponsored listings will now include a prominent link directly to a hotel’s website to facilitate a booking. Previously, listings linked through to an OTA.

https://www.phocuswire.com/tripadvisor-sponsored-placements-direct-bookings

Google vacation rentals: Booking Holdings is gone, Airbnb is in

Airbnb listings have begun appearing for the first time in Google’s vacation rentals feature in several European cities, including Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid. Airbnb’s appearance in Google vacation rentals could be a cameo — a small test to see if participation is worthwhile.

https://skift.com/2019/10/22/airbnb-makes-debut-in-google-vacation-rentals-for-now/

Independent hotels disappearing as chains grow

More independent hotels are either joining the big chains or shutting their doors. One of the biggest reasons independent hotels are disappearing is that they’re getting acquired by the large hotel companies or joining them as affiliates to tap into their marketing power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/business/independent-hotels-airbnb-boutique-chains.html

Phocuswright: Capturing the Chinese travel consumer

1.4 billion people strong, the Chinese make up a large percentage of APAC travelers. Capturing Chinese travelers is like netting a big fish. They travel in throngs and have money to spend. This is proven by the travel bookings from the region amounting to USD 420 billion in 2018 and is expected to increase to USD 480bn in 2020.

https://www.traveldailymedia.com/capturing-the-chinese-consumer/

Agoda on moving beyond accommodation

In the past, Agoda was all about hotels. That has changed. Today the company sells flights, tours as well as alternative accommodation which has become a strong pillar of the business. Thailand-based travel platform Agoda says it is focusing on finding the “best inventory” for its customers, operating with the “best tech” and fending off the intense competition in Asia armed with the “best weapons.”

https://www.phocuswire.com/Agoda-John-Broughton-Brown-interview

Meet Team eRevMax at WTM London, Stand TT211 from 4 – 6 November 2019 – contact marketing@erevmax.com to set up a meeting.

Thanks and have a good day!

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Online travel trends in USA

It’s been a decade since the travel industry has turned around from the global recession. The past 10 years marks the story of remarkable resilience shown by the hoteliers. From accommodation sharing to rate comparison to social selling to travel demand surge – this has been a period of challenges, disruptions and growth.

Fueled by digital innovation, the shift to online travel booking has emerged as a global trend. In 2009, Expedia and Booking – two of world’s biggest OTAs processed around $15 billion in gross bookings. In 2018, they reported gross global bookings of $99 billion and $92 billion, respectively. From $15 billion to $191 billion – this astonishing 1200% increase reflects the change in traveler’s booking behavior and preference.

According to a survey by Wex on US travelers’ booking behavior and preferences ranging in age from 18 to 70, typically 67% of respondents book their travel online with 73% of Gen Z and 76% of Millennial travelers doing so. The online travel market in US, although near saturation, has been outpacing the overall market and now amounts to US$103 billion. While OTAs are expected to control 41% market share in 2020, Expedia and Booking Holdings continue to dominate in the U.S., with the two collectively representing 92% of the OTA market. In this post we take a deep dive into OTAs in the region who are playing vital role in shaping the digital travel.

Expedia

In 2018, 350 million room-nights were booked through Expedia, making hotel reservations its biggest source of revenue. Following the merchant revenue model, the company buys up a large number of hotel rooms at a lower rate and receives booking payments from the customer. Through a network of branded travel booking sites, including Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, Wotif, Egencia, Vrbo along with the metasearch platform Trivago, the group has been able to drive a loyal user base. The Expedia platform had over 1 million properties (including 370,000 of HomeAway vacation rentals) with its site receiving 675 million monthly site visits and its mobile app being one of the most popular one across platforms.

For listed hotels, the company provides an easy-to-use console Expedia Group Partner Central to manage their properties, join promotions and packages to attract travelers, and maximise revenues.

Egencia is the business travel management service offering accommodation, flights, activities, and more to businesses who wish to leverage their services to find the best deals for travelers.

Booking.com

Everyday over 1.5 million room-nights are booked on Booking Holdings platform making it the largest online travel agency in the world, and has a portfolio of popular OTAs, including Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda and Kayak.  Booking.com, its flagship brand largely works on the agency model acting as agents on behalf of accommodation providers. Hotels pay the OTAs once the booking has been paid in full by the guests. Its loyalty reward system called Genius provides members with discounts and rewards which increase as the member books more through the site. Booking.com has been steadily making inroads in the US market which has been historically dominated by Expedia.

Listing on Booking.com is a rather simple process. Accommodation providers need to visit the registration page and complete the instructions. It’s important to select the property type to ensure right category listing. The commission-based service even offers 24/7 multilingual assistance and markets your property on various search engines. Booking.com provides its client properties a Visibility Dashboard with the relevant data to track and improve your visibility in the search results. Hotels can also take advantage of its Genius and Preferred Partner Programme for better visibility.

Airbnb

Over the last couple of years, Airbnb has emerged as a preferred channel for independent and boutique hotels. In fact, properties listed as boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other hospitality venues like hostels and resorts have grown by 152 percent in the last one year. The platform has also emerged as a preferred option for last-minute bookers, which is expected to get further boost following its acquisition of HotelTonight and cross-promotion across these channels. Since last year, Airbnb has been highlighting hotels more prominently on its website and introduced a loyalty program. Earlier this year, the company has eliminated guest fee on new hotel listings making it more competitive with traditional OTAs. To list their properties on Airbnb, hotels need to match guidelines set by the channel like:

  • Vibrant common gathering spaces / events
  • Guest rooms with personal touches that are individually unique and/or local in design
  • High-quality photos on the listing page that showcase the design of the property and what guests can expect
  • Accessibility features that are helpful to guests with limited mobility

Hotels.com

A part of Expedia group, Hotels.com is a strong brand available across 85 local websites in 35 languages. The channel receives over 60 million unique visitors per month.  It’s loyalty program Hotels.com® Rewards has over 15 million members. With a fully responsive mobile site and mobile app with over 50 million downloads to date, customers can book on the go with access to 20,000 last minute deals. To list a property, hoteliers need to apply through Expedia Partner Central (EPC). As part of the Expedia group, the listing gets featured across all Expedia sites including Orbitz.com, Expedia.com, and Travelocity.

 

 

 

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The Week, That Was – October 2019 Week 2

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!!

HospitalityUnited.Club to host Cocktails & Conversations in Singapore

The consortium of travel technology specialists, HospitalityUnited.Club, is ready to host its exclusive ‘Cocktails & Conversations’ evening in Singapore this month, on 16th October 2019. The Club will be hosting the event in partnership with AgentX101, HotelTonight, Ecommpay, LiveOS, RateTiger and WIHP, to present the latest in travel technology.

Register today – https://www.hospitalityunited.club/events-register/singapore-oct19.html

Booking.com’s top travel trends for 2020

The company predicts 2020 will be a year of travel exploration like never before, fueled by technology as well as a growing sense of responsibility and deeper connection with the people and places we visit.

https://travelpredictions2020.com/#5

If you think email is dead, think again

Adobe’s recently released Email Usage Study for 2019 reveals new insights about consumer habits and preferences around receiving marketing emails. The respondents are spending up to five hours a day checking their emails (both work and personal). In fact, they actually feel that the amount of time they are spending is ‘just right.’

https://www.clickz.com/email-usage-study-adobe-2019/255955/

RoomIt by CWT expands channel manager connectivity

RoomIt by CWT the global hotel distribution division of CWT, announces new strategic partnerships with multiple global hotel guest acquisition platforms. The partnerships provide business travelers with more choice and hotels with greater access to customers.

https://news.carlsonwagonlit.com/pressreleases/roomit-by-cwt-expands-hotel-distribution-with-new-strategic-global-partnerships-2924419

Hotels are start, end points of travel experiences

As affluents become more drawn to experiential travel, the role of the hotel has evolved to become more about the destination than simply about hospitality. During a panel at Condé Nast Traveler’s Points of View Summit, industry experts discussed how high-end and boutique hotels are becoming more reflective of their location. Design, sustainability practices and programming are different ways hotels can incorporate local elements.

https://www.luxurydaily.com/hotels-are-start-end-points-of-travel-experiences/

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

Thanks and have a good day!

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Daan Utsav: eRevMax celebrates the Invaluable Joy of Giving

Daan Utsav, also known as the ‘Joy of Giving’ festival is celebrated every year from 2 – 8 October in India. It brings together people across the country to participate in their own ways and give back to the society.

eRevMax, the leading hospitality technology solutions provider, has been celebrating the ‘Joy of Giving’ festival over the last few years. The company organizes internal collection drives to raise funds or gifts as per the wish list of the children it works with under its CSR initiatives. This year’s event was aimed at providing school bags for all the children of two primary schools in Kolkata.

By encouraging and enabling employee volunteering, eRevMax brings together people and good causes to create a wave of change. Volunteers from across different eRevMax offices took an active interest in this noble cause. It is moments like these when we choose to be warm, generous and kind that marks the quality of our lives and makes a difference to the world around us.

We aim to spread this movement by encouraging one and all to come forward and spread kindness and be generous. Here are some glimpses from eRevMax Daan Utsav 2019 celebrations –

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The Week, That Was – September 2019 Week 4

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!!

Saudi based SAS Hotel recommends eRevMax for its Mobile Channel Manager

SAS Hotel, an upscale 4-star property in Saudi Arabia, has strongly recommended RateTiger and its Mobile App for hoteliers to effectively manage their online business. The property has been using RateTiger’s web-based channel management solution from eRevMax and has been a prolific user of the RateTiger-LiveOS mobile app.

https://bit.ly/2nqPtDu

What blockchain in corporate travel could mean for GDSs, TMCs

Technology companies, from startups with hardly any funding to the likes of IBM, are exploring how blockchain can be used in travel, including in the corporate space. One such company is Blockskye, which is using the technology to solve issues around distribution.

https://www.phocuswire.com/the-beat-live-blockchain-corporate-travel

50 years of the hotel PMS (and why it matters)

The hotel PMS has been around for about 50 years. Despite the technological progress made during all of those years, for most of that time hotels have relied on legacy systems with relatively basic functionalities and mainframes that kept everyone glued to a desk. Then in 2010, the cloud-based system came along, which changed so much more about the PMS than most hotels realize. And now, we’ve come even further to the API-first era.

https://www.hotelmarketing.com/articles/50-years-of-the-hotel-pms-and-why-it-matters

Hotels are gaining brand power

The demise of Thomas Cook is a testament to the profound changes faced by the tourism industry. It also contains clues as to its future direction of travel. However, something fundamental did change: brand power. Before the rise of online booking – let alone when Thomas Cook was born in 1841 – travelers relied on the tour operator brand not just for simplicity and peace of mind, but also to ensure a certain level of quality when staying in unknown countries.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-thomas-cooks-collapse-says-about-modern-tourism-11569248853

 Behind Airbnb’s purchase of HotelTonight and push into hotels

Sam Shank, co-founder of HotelTonight, now heads up Airbnb’s hotel division and spoke about the push last week at the Skift conference in NY. Shank noted that his team is building out the hotel category on Airbnb for the San Francisco-based company, which purchased HotelTonight, an app that popularized the last-minute booking trend, in March.

https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/behind-airbnbs-purchase-hoteltonight-and-push-hotels/2198561

The cause and effect of slowing business travel

With geopolitical and macroeconomic issues causing some concern for large businesses, hotel executives speaking during second-quarter earnings calls noted a drop-off in business transient. Global geopolitical issues apparently had businesses feeling anxious in the first half of 2019, and that impacted how much they were willing to spend on employee travel.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297668/The-cause-and-effect-of-slowing-business-travel

Managing RevPAR for profits

To assist revenue managers, CBRE Hotels Research analyzed the impact of the components of RevPAR (occupancy and ADR) on changes in profits. Per the name, the historical role of revenue managers has been to maximize revenue – specifically rooms revenue or revenue per available room. RevPAR growth is achieved by increasing occupancy and/or average daily rates.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/298239/Managing-RevPAR-for-profits

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

Thanks and have a good day!

 

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Is Your Hotel Website ADA-Compliant

ADA or The Americans with Disabilities Act demands that every business need to make sure that customers can get access to the same services, irrespective of how physically capable they are. The Government is taking active steps to make sure that ADA-accessibility extends not only to offline businesses but also to online properties like mobile apps and websites. If you have a hotel website, you have to make sure that it is ADA-compliant, or you could be staring at trouble before long.

Is Your Hotel Website ADA-Compliant

Focus on the text

Your website should have text that can be resized easily. Make sure that there is a high-contrast mode option which can make it easier for slightly vision impaired visitors to read the text. The site should have a text-only option, and all the functionalities need to be accessible via a keyboard for guests with mobility problems. Ensure that there is minimal formatting for the text. Those who experience problems in seeing might be incapable of reading colored text on colored backgrounds or text that is especially small in size. It is best for you to adhere to a common, large-sized font with dark colored text on white background.

Look at the photos and images

The photos must have proper text descriptions. Your social marketing strategies and website videos should comprise of transcripts and audio descriptions for all those who are hearing impaired. There is a text-based analog for all the visual media. The images must have “alt” text for content description. Suitable descriptive text must be added to videos. You can use screen reader software to describe your website images.

Offer accessibility information all through the site

Throughout your website, you have to feature accessibility information. Say a disabled traveler wants to know whether she can arrive and reach his room, get inside, take a shower and sleep and move about without problems, your hotel website should make all the details easily accessible. You have to include full information about how his experience with your hotel property would be upon arrival. You have to describe every space in your hotel, as well as how it would be like to move to and from each space. Mention all possible obstacles along your way, and also specify any inaccessible area.

Keep in mind that room details are not enough. Your hotel site needs to spot as well as describe every accessible area of your property in complete detail – such as the common spaces, the pathways from and to these spaces all through the hotel, the on-site amenities and more. There can be lawsuits in the absence of all these details. Due to this reason, hotel sites have to include entire accessibility content for every area of the property.

After you make all such changes to your hotel website to satisfy ADA guidelines, get your site evaluated by a web development firm that is familiar with all the issues of ADA compliance. Make sure that visitors using screen readers and other assistive technologies can fully access your website content.

Get Hotel booking channel manager software

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The Week, That Was – September 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!!

Morocco Enjoys A Positive Year for Travel

The tourism sector in Morocco is experiencing a significant growth. Over 12 million tourists visited the country in 2018. Morocco witnessed an impressive ten-fold increase in Chinese tourist arrivals over the last three years – from 10,000 in 2015 to nearly 180,000 last year.

https://www.erevmax.com/blog/index.php/2019/09/morocco-enjoys-a-positive-year-for-travel/

Mapping your hotel’s 2020 digital marketing budget

It’s budgeting season, which means your hotel is probably ready to start planning how, when and where you’ll be investing during 2020.

https://www.traveltripper.com/blog/budget-season-tips-mapping-your-hotels-2020-digital-marketing-budget/

Google reintroduces promoted hotels to hotel search

After a brief appearance during 2018, the long-awaited and high-impact product from Google, Promoted Hotels, is back on the front pages of Google Hotel Search.

https://koddi.com/google-reintroduces-promoted-hotels-to-hotel-search/

The Future Of Travel: Hotel game-changers

The annual Radical Innovation competition challenges the hotel industry to elevate the guest experience by calling for new ideas in design and operations. This year, the 13thof the competition, the three finalists were selected from over 50 entries, submitted from 20 different countries.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelinavillaclarke/2019/09/15/the-future-of-travel-hotel-game-changers/#7cb75c9b603c

Hotels could look like this by 2034

An interactive hotel room created by Guestline, in collaboration with technology, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and hotel experts, revealed how the hotel of the future will look and function by 2034. The highly accredited experts provided their predictions and valuable insights, to show what we can expect to see in our hotel rooms over the next 15 years.

https://www.traveldailymedia.com/hotels-could-look-like-this-by-2034/

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

Thanks and have a good day!

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Morocco Enjoys A Positive Year for Travel

Morocco, considered as the gateway to Africa, is a country offering heritage cities, sprawling mountain ranges, golden deserts and warm hospitality. The country has been experiencing a surge in tourism over the last few years and continues to feature in the bucket list of many travelers.

Between 2000 and 2018, Morocco has averaged an annual growth of 6 percent in tourism arrivals, which is two points higher than global tourism growth. In 2018 itself, Morocco received 12.3 million tourists, up 8% from the previous year. Marrakech, the most visited Moroccan city, recorded over 2.4 million tourist arrivals from January to November, in addition to 2.6 million scheduled hotel stays through the end of 2018.

These figures are a testimony to Morocco’s growing prominence as a major tourist destination as well as the contribution of tourism revenue towards the country’s GDP. Research studies show that this growth is partly due to the rise of internet and mobile bookings, allowing people from far off places to be able to research, compare and make flight and hotel bookings online – easily and conveniently.

While the traditional offline booking channels continue to remain strong, the growth of online sales channels and travel intermediaries have been phenomenal over the last few years. So much so that online and offline booking numbers now have very similar levels of value sales. This growth, however, has not been overnight and has various factors that led to this change.

Over time, domestic tourism has received a major boost, especially with the introduction of secure online payments. Further, OTAs and other sales channels have been offering promotions and discounts on online bookings, which is proving to be attractive for travellers. Not only has this impacted domestic tourism – it has led to a rise in international tourists who are now making a beeline for Morocco to experience its rich culture and ornate architecture.

With the Government chipping in to increase tourism by relaxing visa requirements for certain countries, Morocco witnessed an impressive ten-fold increase in Chinese tourist arrivals over the last three years – from 10,000 in 2015 to nearly 180,000 last year.

Further, the rapid development in mobile technology and popularity of social media platforms has literally put travel research and booking into the hands of people. Not only can travelers search and book, travel suppliers too can advertise on these platforms to get in front of potential guests and generate online bookings by providing a defined customer journey through various touchpoints.

With increasing competition and price sensitive guests, hoteliers need to ensure they are visible on multiple OTAs and metasearch channels as well as keep their brand website updated to be able to achieve maximum occupancy and meet revenue targets. Hence, knowing the right channels that bring business to your city is a key and being connected to them is very important for your online sales strategy. To find out how you can improve online revenue, contact us today and speak to our connectivity advisor – https://goo.gl/3gKUJZ

*source- mordorintelligence, moroccoworldnews

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Bahrain – Middle East’s new hotspot

For a country of 1.4 million people, Bahrain,the small island nation in the Persian Gulf, receives about 16 million visitors every year. Driven largely by business travel, Bahrain has recently witnessed a surge in leisure travelers which together is expected to place the country’s tourism industry on track to reach its $1 billion 2020 target. The tourism sector is one of the key investment sectors and contributes 6.3% to the country’s GDP, and is set to grow significantly, as the number of visitors and leisure activities increase.

A popular destination for neighbouring countries, Bahrain has aggressively promoting tourism in the Indian luxury segment and has also emerged as a prime wedding destination. the occupancy of Bahrain’s five-star hotels stood at 53 percent during the quarter, compared to 50 percent in 2018. In the first quarter of 2019 the total number of nights by tourists reached 4.1 million nights, an average of 3.3 nights per tourist.

Online travel is growing significantly in the GCC driven by high penetration for smartphones and adoption of e-commerce. Online travel bookings represent approximately 32% of the overall bookings which is projected to reach 40% by 2021. Bahrain, which has almost 100% internet penetration, makes it an attractive option for hotels to sell more on online.

Hotels are increasingly adopting to the technology. According to a recent study by eRevMax, hotels in the region now use at least three travel technology applications. In lieu with the growth in online bookings, Channel Manager or OTA connectivity solution has become a must have to manage online sales channels.

As the online travel market becomes the key component of tourism ecosystem in the GCC, it has open up new digital opportunities for hotels to engage with their consumers and the rapidly growing young segment of the GCC population.

Bahrain is now a perfect hot spot for every nationality Americans, Europeans, and Middle Eastern travelling in the region. As a travel destination, Bahrain is perfect for all; from families with children to even solo women travellers.

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

           

 

Source – *voyagersworld, travelwirenews, arabianbusiness,zawya, economictimes

                                            

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The Week, That Was – August 2019 Week 5

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!!

Booking.com and Expedia are growing in very different ways

eRevMax partners Expedia Group and Booking Holdings reported total revenues of $11.2 billion and $14.5 billion in 2018, respectively. Moreover, both the company’s revenues have grown at a similar CAGR of 19% since 2016.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/08/26/booking-holdings-and-expedia-are-both-growing-steadily-but-in-very-different-ways/#7515a5d21f04

A blockchain to reconcile hotel commissions

Travelport working with IBM, BCD Travel and three hotel chains—has created a minimum viable product solution that uses blockchain to reconcile the commissions hotels pay travel management companies.

https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Distribution/A-Blockchain-Way-to-Reconcile-Hotel-Commissions

Learning from the past: Cutting rates hurts everyone

An analysis of how quickly hoteliers responded to other hotels dropping rates in their competitive sets during the recession shows no one comes out a winner.

To have a better idea of what a potential downturn could mean for the U.S. hotel industry, it’s worth observing how hoteliers behaved during the last one.

http://hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/297755/Learning-from-the-past-Cutting-rates-hurts-everyone

How Google’s machine learning technology can ace up the travel industry

The technology of machine learning is benefiting almost every industry but the most significant modification can be seen in the travel sector. Interestingly, tech-giant Google is making a major shift into the travel industry while enabling customers to book air tickets, hotels, and packages. It is also aiding customers in accessing stuff which they might have never come across on their own.

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/googles-machine-learning-technology-can-ace-travel-industry/

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

Thanks and have a good day!