RateTiger Nominated for the Retail Business Show Awards 2009

RateTiger has been nominated and short listed in The Retail Business Show Awards 2009 for its leading channel management product.

The Retail Business Show Awards, to be held Wednesday 29 January 2009 at The Grosvenor House Hotel in Mayfair, London, comprises 15 categories, including Hospitality Solution. RateTiger has been identified and selected as one of three companies that have understood the hospitality market and made a significant difference to it’s customers in 2008.

RTAllocator – a tool that helps hoteliers to manage their rates and inventory across multiple online distribution channels – was submitted after a successful installation at award-winning Hotel53 in York. Hotel53 experienced a revenue increase of 10% and occupancy levels rose by 15% in the first few months of use.

RateTiger has been expanding rapidly internationally, as it becomes a leader in channel management applications. Earlier this year the company received certification from Expedia for its room rate and inventory distribution technologies for the hospitality industry. RateTiger is also backed by ISO-27001:2005 certification that implements security controls customised to the needs of individual businesses to protect information assets and give confidence to hoteliers using RateTiger products.

Front of House Manager Sarah Culshaw had been logging online each day to update all websites manually making it a time-consuming activity taking over eight hours each week. Since the installation of RateTiger products Sarah saved 75% of her time managing the different sales channels.

About the product Culshaw said: ““Because all our rates can now be updated almost instantly, it not only frees up a lot more of my time, but it means we can react more quickly to the market. We have four different room types, and thanks to RTAllocator Lite, I can now make 16 daily rate updates very quickly and very accurately. Even though RTAllocator Lite is easy to use, even for a virtual novice, it is reassuring to know that there is round-the-clock help so that any difficulties can be resolved straight away.”

The final judging panel consists of Miya Knights – Editor of Retail Technology Magazine, Jon Davison, Managing Vice President, Gartner Industry Advisory Services, Retail, Paul Rodgers, Chairman, Vendorcom, James Roper, CEO, IMRG and Richard Cobbold, CEO, The Screen

“This is a great achievement for the RateTiger team and truly shows the value of our channel management technologies,” said Sascha Hausmann, COO. “The return for Hotel53 represents the benefits hoteliers across the industry can reap from using intelligent shopping and allocation products for rooms and rates across third party distribution channels. We have been making extraordinary developments in 2008 and this is the icing on the cake as we end a successful year.”

Judges will focus on entries that either exhibit a measurable business benefit and bottom line contribution or show genuine innovation and development, complete with evidence to demonstrate the underlying core value of bringing tangible benefits to the end user.

To view the shortlisted companies in each of the 15 award categories visit: http://www.trbsawards.co.uk/content/shortlisted-companies

ReservHOTEL International joins forces with RateTiger

RateTiger – a market leader in online distribution management tools for the hospitality industry – has combined forces with ReservHOTEL, a leading international hotel marketing and service company.

ReservHOTEL will use RateTiger’s “RTConnect” product, an XML based system that acts as an interface between multiple reservation systems and over 300 IDS channels worldwide.

RTConnect allows reservation systems to consolidate updating of rates and inventory on different IDS channels. Hotelier’s can now centrally manage rates and inventory directly from the reservation system, thus eliminating the need to update and monitor several systems separately.

Another key module of RTConnect allows retrieving of booking information from connected extranets. These bookings are automatically processed through ReservHotel and can be sent directly to the hotels PMS or CRS, thus saving hoteliers the time consuming effort of having to manually enter reservations that arrive via email or fax.

“Working with RateTiger means our 1800 + customers can now benefit from their pioneering technology though our web based system” said Luis Barberi ReservHOTEL’s President and CEO. “This will help our hoteliers take a more pragmatic approach to managing their inventory across a broader range of distribution channels. Hotels can now expand their breadth of distribution and subscribe to additional channels to maximize their online presence and revenue”.

RateTiger products allow hotels to join a larger number of travel booking sites including even small regional and city sites. “RateTiger has been extremely flexible meeting the needs of ReservHOTEL, which supports growth in these challenging times” said Barberi. “We are pleased to offer this functionality to our customers and look forward to developing further ground breaking technologies together with RateTiger .”

“Optimizing online reservations to meet revenue targets has become an increasingly important factor for hoteliers and will continue to grow in significance as more people choose to go to websites to purchase their goods and services,” added Sascha Hausmann, COO at RateTiger . “In order to achieve revenue and occupancy targets, hoteliers should be regularly monitoring and replenishing their inventory across all their distribution channels. RTConnect will allow ReservHOTEL customers to carry out this task quickly and efficiently and with absolute precision. It is a tool that will greatly simplify their inventory management.”

ReservHOTEL is also promoting RateTiger ’s RTShopper product to their customers as the hotel benchmarking tool of choice and is working closely with RateTiger to develop a more integrated solution.

This news follows RateTiger ’s further announced strategic partnerships this year with Utell, EZRMS and Pulse Technologies.

Utell and RateTiger Join Forces

RateTiger, a leader in online hotel distribution management tools and Utell Hotels & Resorts, the world’s largest provider of representation services for hotels, today announced a global partnership to deliver robust distribution, benchmarking, inventory and rate management tools to hotels.

Utell will integrate RateTiger’s services into Market Insight, its own suite of distribution management tools and technology. Market Insight comprises of the following components: MarketCompare, which helps hoteliers easily benchmark rates against direct competitors; MarketUpdate, an application that allows hotels to update rates, availability and restrictions across online distribution channels through one simple interface; and MarketManage, an enhanced combination of MarketCompare and MarketUpdate.

Ric Leutwyler, president, Utell stated: “In challenging economic times like these, it is critical for hoteliers to make the most of every revenue opportunity by knowing if their rates are competitive. Utell customers can combine the power of our global sales, marketing and distribution support with Market Insight’s real time competitive data and management tools to drive as much business as possible to their properties. Our mission is to help hotels compete more successfully and incorporating RateTiger’s expertise ensures that our hotel members have the latest products at their fingertips to help achieve a distinct competitive advantage.”

Market Insight will also offer hotels simple-to-use technology that builds on Utell’s already powerful distribution technology from Pegasus Solutions, according to Sascha Hausmann, RateTiger’s chief operating officer.

“Hoteliers are overwhelmed with what they need to do to stay competitive, which is why we’ve teamed with Utell to offer a ‘one-stop-solution’ to its members,” said Hausmann. “The integrated Market Insight tools allow hoteliers to streamline channel management and rate monitoring, empowering them to focus both time and budget on other issues that also need their attention.”

Utell Hotels & Resorts (which includes both the Utell and Unirez representation services) is committed to enabling nearly 11,000 hotels to compete globally. Market Insight is the latest initiative to help hotels members be more successful by providing a range of flexible packages that include access to full training and multilingual support.

RateTiger and easyRMS form Channel Management partnership

Rate Tiger has integrated with leading hotel revenue management system provider, EasyRMS to help hoteliers streamline their channel management of online distribution sites.

Hotels using both systems will now be able to maximise online revenue through third party channels by having an automated process from rate calculation to rate distribution to travel websites. The integration allows the room rates calculated by EzRMS™ to be distributed across the web via the Rate Tiger product suites. This saves hotels having to enter data manually for each individual channel.

Rate Tiger’s integration with EzRMS™ will improve efficiency for hoteliers who need to allocate their room rates and inventory to online distribution channels. Further eliminating human error and making updates quicker and easier. The EzRMS™ system will work in real-time through Rate Tiger’s leading channel management software across multiple online distribution channels.

In order to make this ground breaking technology work a dedicated interface has been developed to handle the way room rates are allocated to the various market segments necessary for each hotel. This provides an even more holistic approach to revenue management.

“The ability to update quickly, efficiently and transparently to numerous internet channels is an essential solution to maximise investments in technology made by hoteliers,” says Clive Taylor, VP Operations at EasyRMS. “The solution assists hoteliers in any part of the world to ensure they have the right prices available to clients. We are very pleased to have developed and tested with Rate Tiger an interface that will ensure the conversion of EzRMS™ recommendations to online channels that our clients are mutually working with.”

“We recently established a dedicated Integration Team to develop close relationships with the industry’s leading revenue management solutions,” said Sascha Hausmann Chief Operating Officer, of Rate Tiger. “We take rates from the revenue management system and post them directly to sales channels. Removing time spent on manual update processes and the associated complexities of channel management allows revenue managers to sign up to many more channels because of the automated interface. We aim to help hoteliers make the most of their investments and maximise revenue from online distribution channels cutting costs and making systems more efficient and responsive to revenue strategy.”

The first hotelier to utilise the converged Rate Tiger and EzRMS™ interface is the NH Tropen Hotel, Amsterdam.

EzRMS™ is a further RMS to be successfully integrated into Rate Tiger’s portfolio providing the flexibility required for updating online channels.