eRevMax hosts networking sessions for Hoteliers at World Travel Market 2013

To celebrate hitting an important milestone in eRevMax history – serving 7000 happy customers – the company attended the 2013 World Travel Market event in London to show exactly why they’re considered a world leader in channel and distribution management. With help from their approved channel ecosystem which includes Agoda, GTA, and Russian-based Ostrovok, eRevMax used this opportunity to show how the popular RateTiger software has evolved and become flexible and diverse enough to meet the needs not only of independent hoteliers but also of mid-market hotel groups and large, global hotel chains. The event took place between 4th and 7th November at ExCeL Docklands.


Networking sessions for Hoteliers at World Travel Market 2013 – Full story


ABAV 2013

The travel industry was at centre stage at 41st ABAV 2013 – the biggest travel trade show, of Latin America as it took place this September in Sao Paulo, Brazil. With the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2014, the host country – Brazil was all geared up for this travel and hospitality fair and attracted a whooping 1500 participant companies from around the world. Organized by Brazilian Association of Travel Agencies, this year’s event took place at Anhembi, the largest events center in Latin America instead of Rio de Janeiro, breaking tradition.
Greg Berman, COO, eRevMax and Alex Moura, Sales Manager for Brazil attended the event and met interesting industry players including Schultz who did a theme based stand. The event was an excellent opportunity to make business and build relationships with tourist trade professionals.
The event focused on a large diversity of products, services and destinations offered by the travel and tourism industry, aimed to facilitate the integration between buyers and suppliers and to encourage networking. With exhibitors from over 50 countries, this year offered a series of novelties including meetings of public and private institutions and important international agreements.

Cleartrip partners with eRevMax

Indian-based OTA Cleartrip has recently completed two-way integration with eRevMax, becoming one of the company’s certified distributors, and certainly one of the biggest within the Indian Subcontinent. This integration means that Cleartrip’s 113,000 (and growing) hotel users across the globe now be able to gain access to broader products and more availability that allows for increased rate parity, real time availability updates, and increased visibility not just within India but throughout the world. The integration comes as OTAs are beginning to notice new trends within the travel industry, and seek solutions to meet demand. Cleartrip Director Amit Taneja reports that Indian travellers are now looking for ‘competitive rates, exhaustive choices, room availability and last minute deals’ above all else.


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San Carlos Hotel selects eRevMax for optimizing online sales

Us luxury brand San Carlos, located at Central Manhattan has partnered with eRevMax increasing their online revenue through optimal distribution. To increase visibility and boost sales, the hotel expanded their marketing technique to include four different distribution channels, yet whilst this did see a rise in guest bookings, it was proving difficult to maintain manually, with staff needing to ‘update rates and inventories multiple times a day’, according to Reservation Manager Fabio Leone. San Carlos Hotel chose eRevMax as a solution provider which allowed them to control their data across all platforms through a single, easy-to-use interface. The solution has proven essential to the business in terms of saving both time and money. RateTiger will help the revenue management team to centrally manage rates and availability in real-time across a variety of OTAsas well as monitor competitor rates in order to react to market dynamics and improve channel rankingReservations generated from their OTA channels will be delivered directly into the hotel’s PMS, thereby eliminating manual interference, improve reservation data quality, and reduce their onward distribution costs.
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protel integrates with eRevMax for seamless online booking connectivity

protel hotel software and eRevMax today announced the successful integration of eRevMax’s two-way XML gateway Connect with protel’s property management system (PMS), offering hotel end-users a wider distribution platform to help increase online exposure and bookings.
Katja Möller-Osthues, Director of Sales at protel, commented: “The integration with eRevMax is a win-win partnership as we aim to help our hotel clients improve operational efficiencies while enhancing distribution reach.”

Hotels using protel’s PMS product range including SPE (Single Property Edition) and MPE (Multi Property Edition) will benefit from updating rates and inventory on a diverse mix of online distribution channels directly from their hotel system in real-time. The secure XML connection will ensure live rate and inventory updates as well as booking data retrieval, thereby keeping the hotel PMS updated at all times.

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Beach Vacations relies on eRevMax for optimizing online sales

Beach Vacations, the leading Beach and Golf vacation specialists have successfully optimized their revenue management strategies through effective use of eRevMax’s market leading e-distribution solutions.
The group managed to boost online revenue and expand distribution for seven of its properties spread across Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. RateTiger Channel Manager helps the Beach Vacations team to react to market dynamics efficiently through immediate rate updates. The quick time to market helps them stay ahead while relevant reports ensure the team can plan and immediately deploy new rate strategies gaining broader market share.
“The Beach Vacations group consisting of over 1200 units transitioned from another leading channel manager for the benefits offered by eRevMax solutions. We have found decreased submission time, increased reliability, more user friendly dashboard, and increased reporting with solid information to base revenue management. RateTiger is a well-rounded tool for our business needs, which we utilize for rate, inventory and reservation management.” Will Powell, Myrtlewood Villas – Beach Vacations.

The Golf Capital of the World, Myrtle Beach is home to over 100 golf courses which attract travel tourists from across the globe. With golf tourism gaining momentum and niche travel sites catering to these needs, Beach Vacations is uniquely positioned as providers of some of the finest properties on Myrtle Beach with an unparalleled vacation experience. With the use of RateTiger Channel Manager, the group has managed to expand distribution reach to attract more guests and improve online bookings.

“We are very happy to have Beach Vacations as one of our RateTiger customers. Their unique value proposition got us excited and we ensured we have the right channels to help them reach out to their target markets. Through RateTiger, they are able to make real-time ARI updates and leverage rate movements as per demand scenario. The tool also helps them monitor channel performance showing them the high producers as well as cost effective channels,” commented Jan Murza, VP Sales – Americas, eRevMax.

RateTiger Channel Manger delivers two-way XML connectivity with leading OTAs and PMS. The channel manager helps hotels improve revenue through better rate and yield management from a single interface. It is the most effective e-distribution solution to drive online bookings.

eRevMax connects with GTA

Global wholesale travel provider GTA and eRevMax, the automated online distribution and channel management specialist, have established a two-way XML connection for rate, inventory and reservation distribution between properties on GTA’s booking systems and subscribers of eRevMax. “This powerful and seamless integration will significantly reduce time to update reservation data while ensuring customer data is entered accurately into the hotel system.” said Greg Berman, COO, eRevMax International.

GTA, a part of part of worldwide wholesale travel provider, Kuoni group, provides its services in over 190 countries. Properties on GTA’s booking systems will benefit from eRevMax’s Reservation Delivery service, which facilitates automatic transfer of reservations data booked through GTA’s online sales channels directly to the hotel property management system (PMS). The hotels can also process rate and inventory updates through RateTiger’s XML interface transferring data in real-time helping them control pricing strategies and optimise revenue.


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Three Strategies to Boost Direct Bookings and Still Appease OTAs

Travelocity, Hotwire, Priceline and other travel deal sites require hotels to pay significant commission fees in exchange for bookings. While this is an important revenue source for the industry, some hotels have experienced an increasing percentage of their business moving to these channels (effectively reducing the amount of undocked reservations they receive).

One primary reason for this trend is the assumption that these online travel agencies (OTAs) will always have the better deal. While rate parity clauses prevent hotels from publicly advertising rates for less than what’s on the OTA, there are strategies property owners can use to entice more customers to book direct.

Recently, my company interviewed several hotel management software and hotel marketing experts to help brainstorm several ways hotels can drive direct bookings. Here’s what they suggested:

Blog About Great Deals and Share The Posts
Your blog is a great avenue for both reminding potential customers why that moment is a great time to travel, and for pitching them on deals relevant to whatever event or season might be happening. You can send these articles to your email list, as well as optimize them with keywords that have high search traffic. This latter strategy can drive more organic traffic to your website. For example, “SXSW hotels” receives 170 searches per month, so Austin-area hotels could write blogs optimized for that keyword so they rank when people search for that term in Google. Here’s an example of a blog post advertising Spring time events in the area around The Sanctuary Beach Resort in Monterey Bay:

Hook Viewers with Strategic Design
Often, travelers shopping on OTAs visit the hotel’s website to learn more about the accommodations offered. This is your chance to capture those site visitors and stop them from going back to the OTA. This takes smart web design.

First off, make it as clear and hassle-free as possible to book. Provide “book now” buttons on every page that link to your hotel booking automation system. These buttons should be located at the top of the page so they are the first thing customers see. Also, include call-to-actions on every page that encourages visitors to “sign up for our email list for exclusive discounts,” or “Like on us on Facebook for special deals.”

Also, many customers assume they will get the “least desirable rooms” if they book on an OTA. So you need to show them what your best rooms look like immediately. This could convince them it’s worth splurging on your room rather than an OTA room. Make sure your most attractive rooms, views and balconies (if you have them) are front and center (like on your homepage). These images need to be professionally taken, high quality and show the best parts of your most desired rooms – soaking tubs, incredible views, large windows and so on.

By implementing these tips, savvy hotel managers can drive customers to their own website without upsetting their OTA and still reap the clear benefits of using OTAs. Rather than a battle, it can be a win for everyone involved.

Interact with Customers on Review Sites
Many times when customers use OTAs, they get a list of five or so properties in a similar price range. In addition to visiting the hotel websites, they might also go to something like Yelp or TripAdvisor. This presents another opportunity to draw customers to your own site, rather than having them go back to the OTA to book.

When customers post reviews about your hotel, you need to try your best to answer as many as possible, where they’re positive or negative. Review, a web-based tool by eRevMax, makes monitoring these reviews as easy as checking emails. The application scours all hotel review sites and collects every mention of your hotel in one location. It also lets you respond directly to guests without ever leaving its interface, cutting down time spent hopping from one review site to another for an effective hotel guest review management process.

Besides just viewing and responding to comments, the tool gives you a deeper understanding of your customers. You can see exactly what’s working and what’s not, trends among customers, and also how your hotel stacks up compared to your competitors.

How do you increase direct bookings? Let us know!


Alan S. Horowitz contributed to this report.

Ashley Verrill is an analyst with Software Advice. She has spent the last six years reporting and writing business news and strategy features. Her work has been featured or cited in Inc., Forbes, Business Insider, GigaOM, CIO.com, Yahoo News, the Upstart Business Journal, the Austin Business Journal and the North Bay Business Journal, among others. She also produces original research-based reports and video content with industry experts and thought leaders.

Spain’s largest hotel complex to drive online revenue with eRevMax

Marina d’Or Holiday Resort has selected eRevMax for optimizing revenue through effective online distribution. All seven properties in the complex will use RateTiger Channel Manager for rate and inventory management across third party channels. “RateTiger will help our properties connect to a significantly higher number of important channels, managing them all from one user-friendly interface and streamlining our distribution process.” said Jorge Juan Iranzo, Revenue Manager en Hoteles Marina d’Or.

Located in Valencia, Marina d’Or Holiday Resort has five hotels in 3, 4 and 5 star categories along with two serviced apartments consisting of over 2150 rooms with capacity for 7000. RateTiger will help Marina d’Or Holiday Resort to manage the rate and availability distribution process, boost exposure to online booking channels globally and drive down the cost of booking acquisition.
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Chinese hotel chain signs eRevMax for market expansion and revenue growth

Rosedale Hotel Group has recently partnered with eRevMax to expand its online visibility to further improve market share. Intense competition in the Chinese hospitality sector has made it important for accommodation providers to optimize all demand sources. Online travel booking is growing in double digits in China and is expected to reach USD 48 billion by 2016.
“We chose RateTiger Channel manager as it is considered one of the best online distribution tools in the industry. It helps our Reservations team save valuable time while reducing workload, we can now make all updates directly from the RateTiger dashboard.” said Mr. Louis Cheng, General Manager of Rosedale Hotel Kowloon and Rosedale on the Park. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Rosedale Hotel Group will also be using RateTiger Shopper, the leading price intelligence tool to monitor rate parity across all its channels. This will empower the property with better room rates and price forecasting to generate more revenue. 
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