World Travel Market 2010

For the fifth consecutive year we have exhibited at this leading industry event. This year saw an increase of delegates by 10% on 2009, a larger excel centre and a completely new layout. Our brand new position within Global Village and a slightly larger stand put us in a prime location close to the Travel Technology area.
The Tiger team of 20 representatives walked the halls to meet hoteliers from all parts of the world accounting for over 150 pre-arranged meetings. Attendees were RateTiger branded with our annual sponsor of the lanyards for the name badges raising the visibility of our attendance throughout the venue.
With our new position on stand GV545 we had much more room and seating to accommodate hoteliers who wanted to discuss products and services or be given a demonstration of our RTSuite product line. Our exhibit was buzzing from the moment the doors opened to the moment they closed with Tiger Time being an effective end of day event. We ran a prize draw to win a very large tiger with people stuffing their business cards in the box to get their hands on the spectacular beast.
Visitors were very keen to get their eyes on the new guest review management tool that had been launched just a few days prior to WTM. RTSuite Review received a lot of interest over the four days; this was spurred by the fact that guest reviews online was the year’s hottest topic, with TripAdvisor stealing numerous large crowds for their presentations and discussions.
The team came away with successful smiles on their faces but with very tired eyes.  Now it’s time to prepare for the next largest event – ITB Berlin.

BAHA Conference and IT Exhibit, November 25th 2010

The BAHA Conference and IT Exhibit is a one-day annual conference of BAHA which is the UK’s leading educational organisation for professionals involved in financial management, revenue management and IT within the hospitality industry. British and international delegates attend to get an informed and cutting-edge view from an international line-up of inspirational experts, all recognised and respected in their own field, about the latest key financial, revenue and IT management issues and developments.

Another first for RateTiger with a very encouraging experience. The event had a high quality of hotel delegates comprising of Revenue Managers, Group Revenue Managers, Managing Directors, Financial Controllers, and IT Directors which made it a perfect audience for RateTiger. There were approximately 22 exhibitors (including IDEAS, Easy RMS, Rubicon, and XN) and 450 delegates.

The delegates received us very well due to the relevant content of some of the workshops and it gave us a great networking opportunity especially for small to medium sized groups.

This event has excellent potential especially as the organization repositions itself beyond accounts to include financial and revenue managers providing interesting and educational sessions on revenue management and channel management techniques


Casey Davy – Sales Manager UK
John Seaton – Sales Manager Global 

Phuket Hotel Show

The Asian Hospitality and Travel Show is a showcase of hotels selling their rooms to tour operators, who attended as buyers (1st – 3rd October 2010, Phuket

Over 100 hotels and resorts exhibited at the event therefore we had easy pray. They welcomed me to their stand for vibrant conversations on their sales strategies and what they were looking at achieving in 2011. Many however felt their manual process updates were effective to-date and the number of channels was not affecting the operations.

This is a good event to check on the status of the market and how it is performing. I look forward to revisiting in 12 months and seeing how the market has matured.

Kenneth Yeo (Mr)
Sales Manager, Asia Pacific

ITB Asia – October 2010

This was the second year that RateTiger attended ITB Asia as exhibitors.The turnout was a good mix of hoteliers, technology companies, OTAs and tourism boards etc. Technology companies like Sabre, Travelport and couple of our competitors were also present this time. About 6,500 trade visitors, up by 5-8% from last year.  Our target, the Hotel exhibitors were 38% of the total exhibitors, which includes Hotel consortia groups, mid-range hotel chains, handful of International hotel chains & independent hotels in Asia, Middle East, India & some key EU cities.

Sudhir:  We were busy with meetings with hoteliers both on and off the booth. I met a lot of hotel groups this time with approx 25-30 new leads.  It was good to see those hotels where we already had a discussion about our products.  Yes, I am sure we covered all the hoteliers present in the show.

Angela: The turnout was good as most Hoteliers had heard or aware of Revenue/Channel Management distribution tool in place.  Our “Tiger Time” party was easy to manage as we have small crowd coming in staggered timings. Our GDS partners, Abacus, Sabre, Travelport/Galilio were our alliances and endorsing our products to Hoteliers. OTAs & Media partners gave us an extra helping hand by introducing hoteliers to us.

This has been a busy time for the Asia sales team with four key travel trade events occurring in close succession; PATA, ITB Asia, WTM and CITM with some hoteliers dropping off ITBAsia and PATA.

Sudhir Ghildiya & Angela Wong
Asia-Pacific Sales Team

RateTiger presentation, Nice, France

With representatives looking after their own regional markets it’s important to occasionally stop and go local. I decided to host an Introduction to Channel Management event in Nice for hotels in the area to find out how they can further improve their online sales.

I invited three existing client hotels to host 13 hotels unfamiliar with channel management and RateTiger. It went very well, in the end my client hotels were doing most of the work by casually talking to the attendees about RateTiger and our premium channel manager.

On going to a more local level of sales activity it’s fascinating to see the level of knowledge and awareness of online sales and the impact the OTA environment has on bookings for hotels. It’s definitely important to continue to educate the industry on the possibilities of online sales and how to improve revenue. 

Stefan Casimir
Sales Manager France

Presentation at hotel school, 20 October 2010

At RateTiger, we see ourselves not only as technology providers. Besides offering state-of-the-art software solutions, our aim is to educate the hotel industry comprehensively about online distribution and marketing, pricing strategies and revenue management. We are hotelier’s consultants rather than a mere software supplier. Hence, we have been offering intensive training, seminars and workshops to hotel practitioners from the start. Moreover, considering today’s students are tomorrow’s hotel managers, we believe it is key to educate the future generation as early as possible, that is, while they’re still at hotel school or university. However, whilst many teachers are open for new developments and keen to offer their students first-hand-insights into digital trends, others aren’t willing to change a long-taught curriculum, which would force them to learn something new themselves. Hamburg’s ‘Hotelfachschule’, in Germany’s north, is happy to have a teacher of the former category.

This teacher, Ansgar Jahns, believes in a practical approach to hotel studies. In his course, students learn about sales and revenue strategies, while concurrently using their new knowledge to analyse two renowned hotels that participate in this project. He has also invited RateTiger to give an overview about the online hotel market and its risks and chances; to inform about the necessities in channel management and benchmarking; and to present our products. Following this invitation, Ulf G. Guldi, RateTiger’s Sales Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, took the trip to Hamburg.

On 20 October, 11 students in their 20s and early 30s, all of which have finished an apprenticeship in a hotel earlier and are now studying for two years to finish a BA in Hotel Business, proved as keen listeners and willing to discuss figures, tricks and trends. Even the school’s director did us the honour and not only welcomed us at the door, but also attended the first half of the session, eager to learn himself. Ulf’s overall overview about the development of online bookings and OTAs was followed by an expert introduction to channel management and its techniques. A lively discussion followed, during which many students compared Ulf’s information to the experiences gained at different hotels. A former hotel pro himself, Ulf had a lot of tales and anecdotes to tell, from his times as Sales Director for various renowned hotel brands. After a necessary break, the students got introduced to RateTiger’s software solution RTSuite. By means of a product demonstration, Ulf presented the features of RateTiger’s benchmarking tool Shopper and the channel management system Allocator. Once more, many questions followed and lead to a productive discussion. Ulf’s resumes: “It’s been great to see the interest of the new generation! They have a strong desire to learn about the online market and supportive technology. It’s a wonderful opportunity to share our knowledge and learn about their needs at the same time. We’ll certainly continue our aims to educate besides selling.”

Scheduled for 2, the session lasted 4,5 hours. All students stayed until the end despite their timetables and postponed work commitments where necessary.

Mahalaya Celebration 2010

 

The Kolkata team at eRevMax welcomed Goddess Durga on 7th October through a small evening celebration. We all turned up in our full festive fashions and decorated the office in an attempt to win some coveted prizes.

The festivities started with a cultural song followed by participation from all members for the various competitions which included traditional dance (Dhunuchi Naach), Uludhwani contest, slogan writing and memory games.

The Departmental Decoration trophy attracted a lot of interest and the teams started preparations well in advance in order to conceptualize different themes for decoration. Using an innovative theme and brilliant decoration, the Customer Support team emerged Winners closely followed by RTConnect team who finished second while the Finance team won a special third prize for their tribal Durga decoration.

 

 

 

Sandeep Jha and Anita Guha won Best Dressed Male and Best Dressed Female prizes respectively for their traditional and ethnic attire.

I will cherish this Mahalaya celebration for a long time to come as this was the first time I saw a corporate house allowing employees to celebrate a festival whole-heartedly.  It felt as if we all came out of the box and enjoyed the evening to its fullness. We will keep these wonderful moments with us now and forever with the hope ‘Aaschhe bocchor abar hobe’.

 

 

 
Mohua Dey has recently joined eRevMax and is a Sr. Content Executive. She is based out of Kolkata and can be reached at
mohuad@erevmax.com
 

International Sales Meet 2010

The International Sales Meeting stayed in the home country of RateTiger’s operations office. The team in London traveled south bound to the British coast to my home town Bournemouth, here the rest of the international sales team joined us for four days of intense team building, strategy deliberation and skills development. This was the first time I had been in the same room as all our global reps and it was a great way to learn more about the specific regions and how the marketing and communications campaigns are working.

Our VP International Sales, Keith Povah, organised a very thorough but fun and engaging itinerary. Surrounded by our Management Team and Board of Directors, our sales managers demonstrated their success over the past 12 months and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Our new VP RTCorporate, Keith Watson, told me “The ISM managed to combine the sharing of information amongst a large team with the chance to get to know them better in a non-work environment. The sessions allowed for many different topics to be covered, which for a new starter is a great introduction.” Having only been in his role for a few weeks it seems this was the perfect intro to the madness of the Tiger!

Casey Davy, our UK Sales Manager (while he had to stay home – no international travel for him) said “There were great training sessions to expand and reinforce product knowledge,  opportunities for knowledge sharing, and exercises to help develop individual skill sets and overviews of strategic sales and marketing plans.  It was also an opportunity for Management to share with the team the big picture, corporate goals, and development within our budding company.”

While our US team did get to travel halfway across the world, from Orlando our Sales Manager Sandy Fanucci also a new member of the team said: “I have been in sales for over 9 years and have participated in many Regional/National Sales Meetings. I have to say this is honestly the first one I enjoyed as much as I did. The meeting format was perfect. Sitting in meeting rooms all day, consecutive days in a row can be very rigorous for someone that’s used to being on the go. So the fact that we got what we needed from a full day’s meeting then a “day break” in between with LOTS of fun was ideal.“

The ‘day break’ she is referring to was a day of Paintball. All members of the team conscientiously participated. The groups, split in two, came out winning four games each – although the hot dogs were much to be desired.

Following the ISM, the team is now back at their desks rapidly working through developments and ideas that came from the session. It’s non-stop for the Tiger! 

Ryan Haynes is the Marketing Head at eRevMax and is responsible for driving all PR and Marketing activities of RateTiger and eRevMax brands globally. Ryan is based out of London and can be reached at  ryanh@ratetiger.com

Hoteliers’ Connect: Bangalore

Earlier this month, I got an opportunity to host leading Bangalore hoteliers at an evening event organized by RateTiger. The idea was to provide a social platform for hoteliers to connect over cocktails while sharing vignettes of their channel management experiences.

With 25 hoteliers present, it was a cozy get-together with every member being very warm and forthcoming with their strategies, suggestions, challenges and queries. Some of our client hoteliers were present too and were happy to share their experience of new channel management modules that they have been using in RateTiger.

As the evening wore on, everyone embarked on a stimulating discussion on revenue strategies. It turned out to be a productive day for them, they also realized that they have not really interacted earlier and many had met their counterparts from other hotels for the first time. They just knew and viewed each other as competitors and not as industry peers. I was so glad to have modified their outlook and they were appreciative of our effort for having hosted such an interesting meet.

Chancery Pavilion was the chosen venue for the evening and being a RateTiger user they were happy to be part of this event. I look forward to doing similar events in other Indian and Asian cities so as to help Revenue Managers meet up outside work and share their valuable experiences with each other. And with our technology, I am sure we can further help revenue managers achieve increased online sales and optimize revenue.

Sudhir Ghildiyal is Sales Manager – Asia Pacific at eRevMax and is responsible for sales of RateTiger products in the region. He is based out of India and can be reached at  sudhirg@erevmax.com