WTM 2015: Hotelogix offers one minute set up for cloud-based property management trials

Hotelogix is offering hotel clients the chance to trial a cloud-based property management system with an automated set up time of just one minute.

Hotelogix is offering hotel clients the chance to trial a cloud-based property management system with an automated set up time of just one minute .

The specialist cloud-based software developer has also started offering its technology to hotels in groups as well as individual properties, to help them automate the way they work in the online marketplace.

At this week’s World Travel Market Hotelogix has been showcasing a new integration with TripAdvisor’s Review Express, which has been shown to increase reviews from genuine customers by up to 160%, and a new metasearch market capability to help hotels decide on their bidding strategy.

Aditya Sanghi, chief executive and founder of Hotelogix, said only 5% of hotels are currently using cloud-based PMS systems and that it’s only a matter of time before the rest will move.

“To help hotels move we are giving them a very simple and non-intrusive way to try out this technology and see what it looks like. It’s a very quick integration. All the hotel has to do is to enter their name and it will configure the PMS for them.

“Hotels are busy in their day jobs and competition is growing day by day. When does a hotel have time to see something like this?”

Sanghi said the group hotel technology has been developed to address issues faced by group properties, which can be magnified many times compared to the challenges a single hotel has.

Hotel operators already signed up include groups with as many as 60 hotels, with others in the single figures based in countries around the globe including India, the Bahamas, the Philippines and Nigeria.

“The main problem this sector has is to stay in sync at a group level with the member properties. At the corporate office level they are leveraging resources around revenue management and operational management but keeping that in sync is where we come in, how they market their member properties.

“Every group has a call centre they expect customers to call to make a booking in any of the member properties and hence keep costs low for each member property. When operators receive a call they need to interact with that guest as the individual hotel would. When the call centre converts it needs to communicate that booking to the property.

“A lot of established groups do not have this technology because they are using legacy systems. Each member property has technology deployed in house, incapable of being available to people outside the property. Cloud technology has huge advantages over legacy technology to give any time anywhere access, giving you information in real-time. This sector is warming up. They realise now there is technology that makes them more efficient.”

Hotelogix charges a monthly per room flat fee for using its technology and offers free usage if confined to a single user. The PMS without distribution for single properties is $4 per room per month, $6 with distribution. For group hotels it is $8 per room per month.

Sanghi said the integration with TripAdvisor will help hotels with their biggest challenge which is capturing reviews from happy guests. The system now offers a complete review collection strategy with a conversion rate of 17%.

The meta market module will enable hotels to set a bidding strategy on PPC for all the major comparison sites like KAYAK, Trivago and Google and provide details on what the properties OTAs are selling and the room rates.

“They need an intelligent tool because hotels do not have the bandwidth to understand this and to see what the best rate they should be bidding at,” said Sanghi.