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Web in Travel 2009 witnessed the debut of the Hotel S.M.A.R.T. Alliance, a technology collaboration that brings together the best-of-breed revenue management solutions for hoteliers today.
The sales, marketing and revenue technology alliance consists of RateTiger, Infor & SoftBrands, Travelscream and Rainmaker who are all exhibiting for the first time together in the Transit Cafe at WIT from 20th – 23rd October at Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore. The Hotel S.M.A.R.T. Alliance will offer a one-stop-shop for hotel management, global travel deal distribution, online channel management, competitor benchmarking, revenue management and customer relationship management – all the functionalities hoteliers are looking for to improve their bottom line.
Keith Povah, VP of Sales International, RateTiger says; “The last two years have presented serious challenges for the hotel industry, and it has made technology solution providers rethink the way they serve the industry. Partnerships and collaborations will dictate the technology scenario for the coming years to ensure hoteliers reach their goals regardless of economic conditions. Taking a seamless approach to revenue management will make pricing more dynamic and provide new opportunities to engage with guests.”
“With the advancement in methods to integrate and share data between e-marketing distribution as well as revenue, property and channel management systems, today’s hoteliers have the unprecedented opportunity to gain maximum competitive advantage in an increasingly dynamic environment by implementing a best-in-breed solution strategy, at no risk of sacrificing data integrity or duplicating entries of it,” said Erik Munoz, VP of Sales, SoftBrands Hospitality, Asia Pacific. “Our alliance partners recognize that a collaborative effort harvests results that are greater than the sum of individual endeavors and share the vision of enabling hoteliers to adopt a best-in-breed approach to their online distribution, revenue management and e-marketing technologies,” he added.
“Travelscream’s platform of cutting-edge content distribution and social marketing tools supports the SMART Alliance vision of giving hoteliers the fastest, easiest ways to find the most customers and interact with them online,” said Eric Demaret, Travelscream Asia Pacific CEO. “By aligning our technologies and intelligence, we’re giving our clients the edge they need to compete efficiently and effectively – and always with the overriding goal of increasing their bottom line revenue.”
“With economic volatility, increased competition and high performance expectations from different stakeholders, the hospitality industry needs to ensure alignment and efficiencies, between the technologies of demand creation and demand management, for maximun profit. The alliance partnership is a great way for the industry to capitalize on this, besides getting the benefit of the shared expertise of the best of breed alliance partners,” said Vivek Bhalla, MD Asia Pacific, The Rainmaker Group.
The optimisation of revenue needs to become a key area of focus for hotels. Today a hotelier has to look at more than just occupancy to ensure proper revenue management. Technology has to live up to these new standards to provide appropriate solutions that will support hoteliers in an environment that becomes impossible to control manually. Therefore, the integration of various systems that support and cater revenue management becomes essential and needs to be a focus for technology providers.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales. She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
