In the news: Strong revenue for hotels with SiteMinder’s solutions, Amadeus’ new deals with EVA Air and Corporate Travel Services, TrustYou Meta-Reviews integrated with Skyscanner
Cloud technology helps generate more revenue for hotels, says SiteMinder
About 27 million hotel reservations generating US11 billion made in the year ending June 2015. (image credit: keport/iStock)
Hotels that employ cloud technology and the latest in tech solutions enjoyed better financial growth than those managing reservations manually, said SiteMinder when revealing the strong revenue generated for hotels using its solutions.
For the 12 months ending June 30, 2015 the global cloud platform for hotels, powered more than US$10.8 billion in revenue for its hotel customers. (See inforgraphic below).
SiteMinder said the revenue was generated from about 27 million hotel reservations throughout the period, reflecting another year of strong growth for the company and the uptake of its product solutions.
These solutions, now used at more than 19,000 hotels globally, include SiteMinder’s Internet booking engine, TheBookingButton, which generated over US$650 million for hotels via their own website.
SiteMinder’s co-founder and managing director, Mike Ford, said these numbers show increasing recognition that best-of-breed hotel technology is crucial to attracting, reaching and converting the modern-day traveller.
“For a hotelier, the Internet economy is demanding more than ever before – with the continual emergence of new, alternative sales avenues such as TripConnect instant booking and the rapid speed at which today’s travellers make their hotel bookings online through their own booking engine or through mobile apps like Roomlia.”
Cloud technology also empowers hoteliers to have greater control of the web, as well as significantly lower costs of guest acquisition which they otherwise would not have, he added..
“There are tangible benefits of replacing the often-dangerous and costly process of manually managing reservations with complete real-time automation, and what these figures ultimately testify to are the fact that more and more hoteliers are realising these benefits are no longer nice-to-haves among the elite chains, but accessible necessities for all hotels,” said Ford.
His comments echoed Phocuswright and h2c’s Independent Lodging Market Report, sponsored by SiteMinder, which found that dynamic rate and availability management across multiple channels is a foreign concept to most independent hotels in the US, while in Europe managing room rates and availability remain largely manual processes for hotels.
EVA Air and Corporate Travel Services sign on with Amadeus
EVA Air is first Asian airline to adopt Amadeus Altéa Revenue Management Suite,
Taiwan’s EVA Air has adopted the Amadeus Altéa Revenue Management Suite, making it the first Asian airline to use this solution.
Amadeus’ revenue management solution draws on real time data from multiple sources, including the Amadeus Altéa Suite, to provide intuitive recommendations on the best pricing of airline offers.
The solution also helps is designed to help airlines gain competitive advantage from new merchandising practices such as dynamic pricing, fare families and ancillary service sales.
Ken Chung, EVA Air’s junior vice president, said: “Moving to Amadeus’ Altéa Revenue Management Suite is a big step for us as we continue to expand our network to North America and South East Asia markets. With a more accurate picture of future demand, we can make better pricing and availability decisions that are critical to improving our profitability.”
EVA Air’s migration to the revenue management solution is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2016.
In another development Singapore-based travel management company, Corporate Travel Services (CTS), has renewed its partnership with Amadeus as its sole GDS partner.
Under the renewed deal CTW will continue to provide its corporate clients with solutions that include Amadeus e-Travel Management (AeTM), an online self-booking tool that serves every aspect of corporations’ travel needs.
Amadeus has been CTS’ sole GDS partner since 1999.
TrustYou integrates Met-Reviews with Skyscanner
Trust You Meta-Reviews enhance hotel reviews on Skyscanner. (Image credit; Artistan-iStock)
TrustYou has added Meta-Reviews to Skyscanner Hotel Travel Search.
This integration enables travellers, with the click of a button, to see an overview of how the hotel ranks overall based on all reviews about the property, as well as how the hotel appeals to different categories of traveller.
Essential areas of interest are also covered in greater detail, from rooms and amenities to location and dining. Each category has its own rating along with comments from actual travellers.
Nikhil Gupta, director of hotels and car hire at Skyscanner, said: “The enhanced reviews will now give our users greater depth of information before they make a decision.”
Benjamin Jost, CEO and co-founder of TrustYou, added: “Meta-Reviews are confidence builders. They make the travel path to purchase more efficient and give travelers a sense of trust in their decisions. Intermediaries, such as Skyscanner, benefit when the traveller also extends that trust to the travel search site and becomes a long-term user.”
