SiteMinder, the world’s leading open hotel commerce platform, has deemed a car-park-turned-hotel-inventory the year’s most ingenious change in conducting hotel business. The title of ‘Innovation Partner of the Year’ was given to RevenYou, a consultancy for independent hotels, at the 2021 SiteMinder Partner of the Year Awards – the only awards program to recognise the B2B players within the hotel technology industry that support hoteliers behind the scenes.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, RevenYou turned the car park at Hotel 115 in Christchurch, New Zealand, into bookable inventory. The transformation involved uploading the hotel’s 13 car spaces as rooms into the property management system and, using SiteMinder as a room distributor, making the spaces bookable through the hotel’s online chatbot. Today, Hotel 115’s car park averages 90 percent occupancy to provide a steady stream of revenue.
“We used a system that the hotel was already paying for, thus cutting the need to increase expenditure each month,” says Tamie Matthews, Consultant at RevenYou. “We thought outside the box. Why does a room type have to have a bed in it? A car park is used for the same period of time as a bedroom, which is overnight. We now track occupancy and revenue-manage this room type the same as we would a queen room.”
Other winners at the 2021 SiteMinder Partner of the Year Awards were:
- Industry Champion of the Year: My Revenue in Colombia, for their proven dedication and commitment to the hotel industry. My Revenue this past year launched 12 learning modules of its revenue management system to support more than 100 hotels in reopening, and designed a virtual university to train hoteliers in the areas of pricing, revenue management and healthy guests.
- Rising Star of the Year: RoomPriceGenie in Switzerland, for their continuous pursuit of revenue management education among independent hotels. RoomPriceGenie this past year launched a hotel academy, a daily email dedicated to pricing, and a concierge service for hoteliers needing help with their pricing strategy. Their product automates pricing for both revenue managers and non-experts.
The inaugural Awards also celebrated the first anniversary of the SiteMinder Partner Program – the most extensive, global program for hotel advisors and property management system (PMS) vendors to gain access to critical training, educational resources and dedicated online support, to provide a more holistic offering to their hotel clients. Three companies were recognised for their commitment to bettering their offering:
- PMS Partner of the Year: 3RPMS in Germany
- Expert Partner of the Year: TrevPAR World in South Africa
- App Partner of the Year: Oaky in the Netherlands
Dai Williams, Chief Growth Officer at SiteMinder, says, “For too long, awards programs within the hospitality industry have sought to reward only established or otherwise consumer-facing names and brands. With more than 1350 partners—which is greater than the ecosystem of any hotel commerce platform—we at SiteMinder know that those who make a real difference to the lives of hoteliers are those who often work in the shadows. We launched the SiteMinder Partner of the Year Awards to recognise those unsung heroes in our industry.”
Adds Williams: “We congratulate all our winners for their relentless pursuit of excellence during a most challenging year. Together, they have proven that innovation and advocacy are alive within the hospitality industry, to support and advance the world’s hotels.”
More than 80 nominations from 24 countries were submitted for the 2021 SiteMinder Partner of the Year Awards. Entries into the Innovation, Industry Champion and Rising Star categories were judged by Alan Gonzalez, Group Director of Distribution & e-Commerce at Warwick Hotels and Resorts; Max Rayner, Partner at Hudson Crossing; and Inga Latham, Chief Product Officer at SiteMinder.
