One month ahead of its 10-year anniversary, SiteMinder has announced the opening of its new office in Galway, Ireland, to support its 20,000-strong global hotel customer base. The office will complement SiteMinder’s existing EMEA headquarters in London to service hotels both within the region and around the world, and to form the company’s fifth office alongside Bangkok, Dallas and Sydney.
Leading the operation will be general manager Ruairi Conroy, who joins SiteMinder from AdRoll and, prior, Google.
Dai Williams, managing director – EMEA at SiteMinder, based in London, says, “Europe now constitutes the greatest proportion of SiteMinder’s total customer base and we anticipate we will continue to experience vigorous growth from this region over the years to come.
“We are delighted to join the thriving technology hub of Galway, which offers us a terrific pool of local talent who are passionate about technology and who can further fuel the success of our multilingual sales and customer support teams servicing hotels located in Europe and all corners of the globe. We are also pleased to welcome Ruairi to the SiteMinder business and look forward to growing the Galway operation under his leadership.”
Nearly 55 percent of accommodation bookings made by European travellers are now made online, according to Eurostat.1 By the end of 2017, Europe is expected to become the first continent to see offline overtaken by online as the primary booking method for travel products, with Germany, Italy and Spain leading the online adoption.2
The Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, through IDA Ireland, says it supports SiteMinder’s office opening in Ireland where the tourism sector constitutes almost four percent of gross national product and 11 percent of total employment.3
The Irish Government’s Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, T.D. says, “I’m delighted to welcome such a dynamic company as SiteMinder to Galway. Galway is fast becoming a tech hub and SiteMinder is an exciting addition with the creation of at least 100 jobs, which will benefit the entire region and have a positive knock-on effect. As Minister my priority is to ensure an environment for job growth is developed right across the country and in particular the regions of Ireland. I wish the SiteMinder team the very best and I am sure that we will be hearing a lot more from this exciting company in the near future.”
SiteMinder’s established customer base in Ireland includes Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel and K Club, as well as Galway’s own The Connacht Hotel and The g Hotel and Spa.
1 European travelers book their flights online, Tourism-Review.com, 23 May 2016
2 Online will be most popular travel booking channel in Europe by 2017, Tnooz, 12 May 2016
3 Special Market Reports: Issue 64 – Ireland, Horwath HTL, May 2016
