Hoteliers across the world are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of internet as sales medium and are moving quickly to make the most of the online opportunity. A strong evidence of the changing market is the surge in number of hotels who have signed with ResAvenue to sell their inventory online in the past year.
What seems to attractive to the newly signed up ResAvenue hoteliers is that it saves big money in terns of recurring high-end hardware costs, software licenses and expensive technical manpower. In the past year, ResAvenue has grown in leaps-and-bounds not only in size (no of hotels signing up) but also in terms of features. The ResAvenue solution is continuously evolving and adapting to meet the ever-changing market requirements – more features, increased payment facilities, attractive new schemes etc. Overall, 2007 has proven to be a good year for ResAvenue.
The Enhancements
Popular Scheme: ResAvenue introduced a new scheme for hotel properties who do not wish to make a major investment for accepting online reservations and yet want to use their own website to sell more rooms and offer an online reservation facility to their guests. Therefore, with ResAvenue’s ‘Popular Scheme’ for an all-inclusive service fee of 6%, Hotels can enjoy improved profitability, minimization of no-show risk, increased occupancy and enhanced guest loyalty while their guests benefit from instantly confirmed, credit card guaranteed reservations at the best rates online.
ExtraNet Service: To provide its hotel partners with an instant direct route to the massive online and offline travel market, ResAvenue launched a Value Added Service ‘ResAvenue Extranet’. Hotels that signed up for a ‘No Set-up Charges, No Annual Fees, No Service Costs Account’ were able to reach out to thousands of online and offline travel agents across the world. The hotels also got prominent visibility on two popular travel websites www.instatravel.com and www.instareserve.com.
Security Enhancements: Avenues India became the first Indian payment gateway to achieve the new Payment* Card Industry Data Security Standards 1.1 Standards of Compliance. This achievement makes it one of the most secure payment gateways in the world and catapults Avenues into an elite global club of payment gateways whose membership can be counted on your fingertips.
*Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance is a set of security standards that were created by the major credit card companies (American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa International) to protect their customers from increasing identity theft and security breaches.
Agent Login Facility: Agent Login is a useful facility that is in-built into every ResAvenue account. This facility will help the hotelier manage inventory allocation to important arms of his distribution network - Travel Agents, Wholesalers and remote Sales Offices directly online from his ResAvenue M.A.R.S. account. The Agent Login facility is a simple yet effective system that can ease any channel management problems. It enables the hotelier to manage multiple distribution channels through a single window.
Increase in Net Banking Options: Over the past year, ResAvenue has come much closer to its goal to build the world’s biggest direct debit engine. Today, ResAvenue has 16 Indian Banks, 20 Chinese Banks and 3 Singaporean Banks through which hotels can accept payments for their room inventory on their hotel’s websites. This helps global hoteliers to accept bookings from local guests and enable them to pay in their local currency. Hoteliers can anticipate the addition of more banks in the near future.
Other Next Generation Payment Options: In addition to adding more banks for direct debit payments to its payment options, ResAvenue has added 2 alternative options for guests who do not hold Credit Cards nor are comfortable with the Net Banking facility offered by the banks. ResAvenue has added a Mobile Payment option from PayMate and a Cash Card option from ItzCash. Currently, these options are only valid in India.
Supports Google Conversion Codes: ResAvenue has configured its system to supports Google’s Conversion Tracking Codes. This new feature allows hotels to insert a conversion tracking code onto their ResAvenue Booking page, which will help them track, monitor and measure with great accuracy statistics relating to traffic, conversions and page views on their hotel website. This will help hotels get a clear picture of how well their website is functioning as their online sales medium.
In Conclusion
As the hotel industry gears up to make the most of the booming online travel industry market, ResAvenue keeps pace with the changing requirements and demands of the marketplace proactively. The enhancements to the ResAvenue system have proved to be beneficial to the hoteliers. This is evident from the fact that ResAvenue has doubled its hotel partner base over the past year. ResAvenue has consolidated its hold on the Indian Sub-Continent, established a strong presence in Asia and made strong forays in Europe.
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