With the advent of cloud computing, the cost of technology has plummeted, a bit like the London FTSE the day after Brexit. The only difference is that, unlike the FTSE index, the prices suppliers can charge hotels for technology will not recover.
The ongoing trend has been to lower the costs which is welcome news for all hoteliers.
Hoteliers have a desire to increase their direct online business. The first step is investing in a booking engine. There are some booking engines currently available on the market that, for a modest monthly fee can be integrated within your website. However, these tend to be limited in flexibility and often become outdated relatively quickly as technology advances. The costs can quickly rack up for a fully featured booking engine with a CRS and connectivity to all channels.
Furthermore, hotels are starting to realise that their online reputation is becoming an essential part of their marketing strategy. No longer is it enough just to rely exclusively on Tripadvisor as they are also targeting your guests to transact through their website, sell your rooms and charge you for the privilege of you sending them your prospect to see your reviews. That’s the best case scenario. Worse case, your prospect could end up booking with a competitor on Trip Advisor, thanks to you sending them there. A brilliant business model for Trip Advisor stockholders. Not so good for hotels.
Hotels should have a business process in place to follow up with guests and ask for feedback. They need an easy way to monitor and respond to reviews while making sure that positive sentiment is shared on the review sites that matter and social media. Ideally, this should be automated to avoid mistakes and to minimise costs. Set and forget reputation management and marketing.
The costs of guest acquisition have been steadily increasing while the cost of booking engines have been drifting down.
Hotelient is disrupting the booking engine market by offering hotels a booking engine that is commission and subscription free. The underlying booking engine technology is already in use with several hundred hotels ranging from 5-star city centre hotels to independent resorts. A number of hotel groups also rely on the technology.
Hotelient advocates that hotels should be investing in the attraction of guests to their web site rather than investing in technology which completes a transaction. Our new booking engine includes an industry-leading CRS that offers connectivity to OTA’s and GDS. The guest interface has been refined over several years to allow the guest to complete their transaction with the minimum of clicks on a desktop and mobile platforms. Hotelient works with its clients on guest acquisition strategies email marketing, reputation, targeted Facebook and Google ad-campaigns.
Hotelient founder John Kearney, said “Hotels by nature are slow to change technology. We still see some hotels on an outdated commission model paying thousands of euros per year. That all changes today. They can adopt our proven technology, without risk. We have created a strategy for hoteliers to optimise their direct bookings. Fundamentally the cost of booking engines has been coming down over the last few years to reach a point where offering this as free service is the next logical step. It is part of our strategy to increase our client base across Europe and the US. When you offer potential guests a seamless booking experience, with social proof at the point of booking, you maximise your direct booking potential. We also see an opportunity educating hotels on how they can drive relevant low-cost traffic to their branded website and receive direct commission/subscription free bookings.
