Former Magic Rooms sales director Stephen Moffett joins Israeli firm
Hotel rates optimisation start-up Hotelmize looks for EMEA expansion
Former Smyrooms and Magic Rooms sales director Stephen Moffett has joined Israeli travel technology firm Hotelmize to expand its reach in Europe and the Middle East.
Moffett, who has been out of the industry for just under a year having left Magic Rooms in September 2018, has joined as EMEA regional sales director.
Hotelmize integrates its technology with OTAs, traditional agents and wholesalers to continually search for lower prices and then automatically rebook them to save its clients money.
The service only works for fully refundable rates, but last year the technology conducted a total of 850,000 bookings.
The firm says that resulted in a saving for its agency clients of $16.5 million in total by finding and booking the cheapest hotel rate available to them. The average per booking saving is $78.
Moffett said: “We work in parallel with clients’ booking systems and we analyse the price they have got and when it drops we rebook at the lower rate.
“The founders saw an opportunity in the market with rates going up and down, like stock market shares, and over the last couple of years Hotelmize has developed a lot of analytical algorithms.
“Integration is a three or four week process and once we’re plugged into their systems our technology works behind the scenes.”
Hotelmize has room mapping to ensure re-booked rooms are equivalent to the original booking and clients can turn off the system for specific suppliers or hotel chains if they wish.
As well as targeting EMEA, the firm, which was established just two years ago, is also looking to expand in the LATAM region and the Far East. It is already operating in Argentina.
In the UK it is already working with some of the leading travel agency booking platform providers.
“At the moment the market is very saturated and competitive and the consumer is very savvy and they are saying they can book rooms at cheaper rates,” Moffett said.
“If an agent can make a saving on bookings, they can use that to do more marketing or they could offer a refund to the consumer. So it could be a profit stream or a used as a loyalty incentive.”
