With hotels seeing a big bounce in bookings, so too can they expect to see more so-called rogue rates creeping back. These are rates that they’ve not authorized, and are a common complaint. Now one of the major bedbank players has developed a platform to help hotels fix any rogue rates they spot.
WebBeds, the accommodation marketplace owned by Australia’s Webjet, has launched a tool called Parity Monitor. It will first act as a hub where hotels can submit parity discrepancies to WebBeds, which connects accommodation providers to a network of 44,000 offline and online travel buyers.
It’s just the first phase of a program, as later it will let its hotel partners track, monitor, report back and eventually resolve rate discrepancies. WebBeds also said it had set up a centralised team dedicated to resolving parity issues.
“WebBeds is very aware of the frustrations that our hotel partners experience when there are rate parity discrepancies in the market,” said WebBeds CEO Daryl Lee.
Oyo, the India-based budget hotel chain and booking platform, plans to double its premium segment hotel count in Indonesia from around 200 properties to over 400 by the end of 2023.
Announcing its plans to double its portfolio, Oyo on Friday said the demand for premium accommodation options is expected to grow significantly in Indonesia in 2023.
The hospitality operator said it is targeting a mix of business and leisure destination such as Jabodebek, Java and Bali, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi.
Currently, Oyo offers accommodation in the mid-premium segment through Townhouse Oak, Townhouse, Collection O and Capital O.
Indonesia is one of the most mature markets for Oyo in terms of scale and unit economics, according to Ankit Tandon, global chief business officer and CEO, Southeast Asia and Middle East.
Indicating a steady rebound in business travel after pandemic induced travel restrictions ebbed in Indonesia, Tandon in his blog last month noted that Oyo has served 253 corporates in 2022 compared to only 75 corporates in 2021 recording a 237 percent year-on-year growth.
Oyo said it has intensified its efforts to identify premium properties across all key regions and efforts are in full steam to onboard and equip them with latest technological tools, increase their visibility and in turn improve their revenue.
“We will identify premium properties and equip them with the latest tech tools to improve their revenue and visibility,” Founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said in a social media post.
In 2022, Indonesia saw around 633 million to 703 million domestic tourist trips while the tourism ministry said it is targeting up to 7.4 million international tourist arrivals and 1.2-1.4 billion domestic tourist movements in 2023.
“Our focus on expanding the premium hotel portfolios in line with the government’s plans to strengthen hotel industry to meet the requirements of the growing number of inbound and corporate tourists looking for well-priced mid-segment and premium hotels,” Tandon said.
A report by property consultancy firm JLL noted that green shoots are emerging for the hotel sector with occupancy levels expected to reach above 50 percent this year.
Oyo said it plans to play the role of a catalyst in this growth with a three-pronged strategy – maximising local market potential, technological innovation to address market pain points and strong collaboration with industry stakeholders.
Having entered Indonesia in 2018, Oyo has since recorded 15 times growth and its bookings from May-November 2022 rose 90 percent compared to same period in 2021.
The hospitality tech company that looks to go public in the Indian stock market with its long-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), has set a deadline of mid-February to refile its draft red herring prospectus with the Indian stock market regulator.
Hotels have mixed feelings about business travel in 2023.
On one hand the corporate travel and groups segment is the main area of focus for hotel revenue teams this year.
But rather than staffing issues, business travel also represents their biggest challenge, according to a new Outlook & Trends 2023 Survey from revenue management software company Duetto.
When hoteliers were asked how they planned to optimize business mix in 2023, the top responses were group business (59.5 percent) followed by corporate business (51.9 percent).
Channel management (48.1 percent), online travel agencies (38 percent), then tour operator, wholesale and fully independent travelers (30.4 percent) followed.
Business travel is returning this year, but Duetto believes the fact it’s unlikely to return 2019 levels weighs heavily. for example, only half of companies located in North America are seeing international bookings recover to their pre-pandemic levels according to the Global Business Travel Association.
When it comes to the challenges hotels face in 2023, business travel came top at 60.8 percent.
Staffing followed at 55.7 percent, ahead of increased costs, government restrictions, lead times and cancellations.
As expected, seeking out sales digitally is a priority when it comes to channel management efforts — but revenue execs could be focusing on the wrong channel if they want to boost their business travel bottom line.
Their top focus for channel management in 2023 are metasearch websites such as Google, TripAdvisor or Kayak. This came out highest at 75.9 percent.
Other areas including loyalty (57 percent); online agency (55.7 percent); “own website” (54.4 percent); and global distribution systems (53.2 percent). Yet it’s these global distribution systems that are commonly used by corporate travel agencies.
Duetto’s survey was carried out from Dec. 1, 2022, to Jan. 16, 2023.
Respondents worked in leisure hotels, business hotels, casino resorts and hostels. Geographically they came from North America (39.5 percent), Europe (21.1 percent), Latin America (21.1 percent), Asia Pacific (14.5 percent), and the Middle East & Africa (3.9 percent).
There’s been well-deserved excitement in travel tech circles in recent years about everything from the New Distribution Capability to chatbots and the arrival of generative AI, but the reality is that much of what passes for travel technology is still backwards these days.
An elevator at the Phoenix Airport car rental center on January 10, 2020. Source: Flickr.com/Tony Webster
Here are a few recent examples:
Avis: Rental Counter Can Be Unavoidable
Avis informed me a few days ago that I couldn’t modify an upcoming reservation at Newark Airport to add electronic toll charges because I made the reservation using points. In a chat, the Avis agent assured me I could add E-ZPass at the counter — although there are often elongated wait times there.
In November at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, as an Avis Preferred member, I was supposed to be able to view the app and go directly to the parking lot to retrieve my rental car, but that didn’t happen. Eventually, an Avis agent at the car rental counter told me I hadn’t been able to go directly to the car in the parking garage because I arrived during an employee shift change, and the cars were not in place and ready. The wait for the cars was at least 45 minutes at the rental counter.
JetBlue Ticket Modifications: You Need to Cancel and Rebook
In early January, I tried to modify a JetBlue flight booking at JetBlue.com, but wasn’t able to. During a text chat, JetBlue told me in what I think was an automated answer that since I booked the flight with points, I’d have to cancel and rebook it to make the change. “TrueBlue point bookings are managed online,” JetBlue stated. “Changes require you to cancel and rebook. Points are returned to the TrueBlue account. Bags/seats are refunded to the original payment.”
If I had booked the original flights with dollars instead of TrueBlue points, I probably would have been able to easily modify the booking online. But don’t airlines want their customers to join their loyalty programs, and redeem those points? Instead, there is a disincentive when points functionality lags.
Avianca Blames the ‘System’ on Multi-City Booking Issue
About a week ago, I wanted to book a multi-city itinerary on Avianca.com, but there was no option to do so. I was looking to book Punta Cana-Cartagena-Medellin-Punta Cana. I complained on Twitter in frustration, and Avianca kindly messaged me within minutes of my tweet that its customer service agents would reach out, which they did. But after a back and forth with one of the agents over a couple of days, he informed me that the Avianca “system” wouldn’t allow him to make the multi-city booking, either. The agent said I should try booking the tickets separately.
I did book the flights separately — but with another airline.
Can’t Bypass the Front Desk at a Hilton Property
In November, I reserved a room for a few nights at a Hilton Garden Inn in New Jersey. A Hilton email informed me I could use the Hilton Honors app for a contactless arrival. The idea was to skip the front desk, head to my assigned room, and unlock the door with my phone.
When I arrived at the property, a very nice front desk employee informed me that for security purposes I would have to show her an ID so it turns out at this particular property, at least, there would be no bypassing the front desk. She then handed me a couple of card keys for my room door.
Moral of the Story?
Despite all the boasts from airlines, hotels, and car rental companies about seamless this or frictionless that, the reality is often more traditional and clunky. The travel industry still finds itself plagued by outdated, legacy technology or more modern applications that sometimes aren’t well thought out.
Plusgrade, a Montreal-based company that helps travel businesses persuade travelers to spend more, has acquired UpStay, a growing provider of upgrade and ancillary revenue solutions for hotels, Plusgrade said Tuesday. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Ancillary revenues refers to revenues generated apart from a company’s primary products and services, such as advertisements or secondary products. These sources of income can enhance or differ from the company’s main offerings.
Plusgrade, the global leader in ancillary revenue solutions, is adding hotel upgrades to its existing portfolio of ancillary revenue and loyalty products. This follows the company’s acquisition of Points, a loyalty ecommerce platform, which closed at $385 million in June 2022. The brand, backed by various private equity firms, hopes to become a global ancillary revenue powerhouse through acquisitions.
“We have been accelerating this mission through a series of innovations, launches and acquisitions, and have come into 2023 as a powerhouse for the global travel industry,” said Ken Harris, Plusgrade CEO. The company plans to use Upstay’s hospitality expertise and technology for upselling additional on-property amenities or services to deliver more value for its 200+ travel and financial services partners across the globe.
Upstay, founded in 2019, has received the 2022 World’s Best Hotel Tech Startup at the World Travel Tech Awards and the 2021 People’s Choice Innovation Award at the Phocuswright Travel Awards for its innovative technology. Its solutions are two-way integrated with over 30 PMS [property management system] vendors, booking engines, and channel managers.
Ancillary sales have propelled the travel industry’s pandemic recovery. Car Trawler projected a 56 percent year-over-year increase in ancillary revenue from 2021 to reach $102.8 billion in 2022. Almost half of all travelers are using ancillary services to improve their travels.
The two companies will operate under Plusgrade going forward.
Google made changes to Google Flights and Hotels related to transparency in hotel reviews and pricing under pressure from the European Commission — but stopped short of making those modifications elsewhere in the world.
“Reviews aren’t verified,” Google states in the European Union. Source: Google
At the behest of the European Commission, Google added text in hotel reviews in European Union countries, noting “Reviews aren’t verified.”
Unlike online travel agencies, Google doesn’t take bookings so it would be hard-pressed to verify user reviews. Tripadvisor, likewise, doesn’t verify hotel reviews for the same reason.
Clicking further into Google’s explanatory language about user reviews in Europe, Google states that it accepts reviews from signed-in users — there’s no requirement that they ever stayed at that particular hotel — and licenses reviews from third-parties. “Google doesn’t do any additional filtering for spam or inappropriate language beyond that done by the provider, nor do we verify these reviews,” Google states.
The European Commission stated that Google accepted this disclosure about hotel reviews and additional transparency commitments that other hotel-booking platforms such as Expedia Group and Booking.com agreed to on pricing and availability.
“The commitments made by Google are a step forward in this direction. We call on Google to comply fully with the Geo-blocking Regulation, ensuring that consumers can enjoy the same rights and access the same content, wherever they are in the EU,” European Commission Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders in the announcement statement.
Google agreed to these changes about user reviews, consented to disclose that Google Flights and Google Hotels is merely a middleman, and agreed to provide greater clarity when presenting discounted pricing, explaining that such deals are merely a reference point. But Google decided to make these changes in Europe only — and not in other geographies around the world where regulators were not providing heat.
“As part of our ongoing dialogue with the European Commission and the EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation Network, we have made changes to our products that provide a clear benefit and protect consumers,” a Google spokesperson stated. “We appreciate the partnership on this topic and are open to constructive dialogue with all consumer associations and regulators.”
Google’s hotel reviews in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world have no added language explaining the reviews are not verified. So travelers might erroneously believe that everyone writing reviews about these hotels actually stayed a night or two there.
A Google hotel review module in the U.S. has no language to let travelers know that the reviews are not verified reviews. Source: Google
Google frequently talks about helping travelers and other consumers to discover information as being one of its top priorities. However, the search engine giant, perhaps in the interests of providing a cleaner user interface that wouldn’t get in the way of users clicking on hotel ads, sacrificed transparency for expediency in the rest of the world.
Google is not alone in doing what regulators demand in one geography, but not expanding it to other regions for the good of consumers. For example, for several years Airbnb has shown the total price of stays, including taxes, up-front in the European Union at the urging of the European Commission. However, it was only this year that Airbnb became displaying the total rate, albeit without taxes included, instead of just the nightly rate without fees at first glance, in other geographies.
Keen to pursue its long-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), hospitality tech company Oyo has said it would be refiling its draft red herring prospectus with the Indian stock market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by mid-February.
While the company refused to offer any estimation of the time it expects SEBI to take for the approval, a source close to the company said Oyo hopes to get the approval by April 2023.
“After the approval comes in, Oyo will gauge market conditions and the path to profitability and then decide on launching the IPO,” the source said speaking to Skift.
Asked to hint at a timeline for the launch of the Oyo IPO, the source said it would well be within this year.
The market regulator had on December 30 asked Oyo to refile the draft prospectus, updating all the relevant sections such as risk factors, key performing indicators, outstanding litigations and basis for offer.
The company had earlier indicated that the process of refiling the document could take up to 2-3 months.
Oyo’s last submission to SEBI was the updated financial results of the first half of financial year 2022-23.
Updating its draft red herring prospectus with results for the first half of the 2023 financial year in November, Oyo had reported that its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization for the second quarter grew eight times from $860,000 in the first quarter to $7 million primarily driven by a 23 percent quarter-on-quarter rise in gross booking value per hotel.
The letter from the market regulator to Oyo read, “The disclosures contained in the present draft red herring prospectus do not take into account the material changes/disclosures arising from updated financial statements as filed through addendums leading to revised period for disclosures which in turn leads to necessities to make material updates in risk factors, basis of offer price, outstanding litigations and update other relevant sections of the prospectus.”
Sharing the progress on the refiling exercise, an Oyo spokesperson said, “We are working on updating all key sections simultaneously. Responsibilities have been divided among different teams, with senior company leaders driving the collaboration with the book running lead managers, essentially the initial public offering bankers, the lawyers and the auditors. We are keen on refiling the draft prospectus by mid February if not earlier.”
The Indian market regulator’s move seems to be in line with its expectation of higher levels of transparency in the initial public offering process.
Lately, it has asked companies to share additional key performing indicators and the basis for pricing of IPOs. In its meeting with bankers in December 2022, SEBI had also shared steps it is taking to reduce the IPO processing time which has increased to 113 days.
Hotelzon claims to offer 1.5 million properties from multiple content sources that include Booking.com and Expedia, and says it has 370,000 users, including travel agencies, corporations and event management companies.
It was established in 1972, but has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Travelport since 2014.
TripStax signed the agreement to acquire Hotelzon as of Dec. 1 2022. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but TripStax said the agreement establishes a “long-term strategic relationship between TripStax and Travelport whereby Hotelzon will continue to generate hotel bookings on Travelport+.”
Jack Ramsey, CEO of TripStax, was previously global sales director at Hotelzon.
The Unbundling Trend
TripStax said the acquisition will boost its technology offering of “connected proprietary business travel modules with a fully integrated hotel booking tool for agencies and corporates direct.”
Hotelzon will be integrated as an additional module.
It is the second acquisition made by TripStax, following its purchase of TapTrip earlier in the year. TapTrip also received investment from ATPI.
“Since its conception, TripStax has been on the look-out for acquisitions which add relevant and complementary tech to its already powerful stack of business travel management modules,” said Ramsay. “We are also excited to welcome the hugely experienced Hotelzon team to the TripStax business and plan to further invest in the team to strengthen existing customer and supplier relationships and realise the full potential of this joint opportunity.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed, in its monthly jobs report released on Friday, that leisure and hospitality — which includes hotels — added 88,000 jobs in November, representing roughly a third of total jobs created in the U.S. Leisure and hospitality added only 35,000 jobs in October — 20,000 came from hotels. Overall employment in leisure and hospitality is 5.8 percent, or 980,000 jobs, below February 2020 levels.
Luxury hotels and resorts, with all their amenities, are usually the playgrounds of the rich and famous and are reserved exclusively for overnight guests who pay top dollar to stay there.
The demand for local experiences, not too far from home, has surged as post-pandemic travel recovers. The six-year-old startup, now bolstered in its current round of funding by the likes of Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow (both avid investors in wellness, health and beauty), said the intention is to build its marketplace so guest more easily access amenities such as pools, spas and fitness centers without the hefty overnight price tag.
ResortPass offers some 900 brands such as the Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons and Westin and gives hotels free listings on its marketplace while charging a subscription for its SaaS software to manage access for day trippers.
While some would argue the model removes the exclusivity for overnight guests, the startup’s business model is to monetize underutilized inventory and work with these hotels to determine price points on par with the caliber of the services and amenities.
ResortPass has also received backing by Airbnb’s syndicate, AirAngels, with the intention to grow new market access for travelers wanting to tap into a destination’s day experiences.
The Series B funding round was co-led by Declaration Partners and 14W, bringing ResortPass’s total funding to $37 million. Early backer CRV also participated in the financing, along with new investors such as William Morris Endeavor, Adam Grant and Brian Kelly of The Points Guy.
Predominantly focused on U.S. destinations, ResortPass’ recent expansion covers the Caribbean, Mexico and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. With its newly acquired funding, ResortPass expects to expand its partnerships into Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
