Hotel distributor SiteMinder to open UK office

Australian hotel distribution company SiteMinder is opening an office in London.

SiteMinder is already active in the UK, with a number of hotels and guest-houses using its technology to distribute their room inventory to the world’s major online booking sites.

New staff will be put in place soon to beef up its push into the UK and European markets, with the aim of becoming a significant player in the market.

Managing director Mike Ford said: “The internet is the fastest-growing source of bookings for accommodation providers today.

“SiteMinder has grown rapidly, connecting thousands of accommodation clients with dozens of leading online booking sites like Expedia, Wotif, Booking.com and Agoda.

“Instead of hotel staff needing to update their inventory on all these different booking sites we do it for them.

“Reservations from booking sites are automatically captured and dropped directly back into hotels’ booking systems.

“This slashes man hours and red tape, and eliminates the need to manually re-key booking site reservation emails and faxes, so it’s a great cost and time saver.

“And we don’t charge commission or lock clients into contracts, which is another cost saver for hotels.”

SiteMinder’s UK office is the first part of major expansion plans for the company, which was founded in 2006, with Asia also a target market.