UK’s largest privately owned hotel group signs with SiteMinder

January 30, 2013 | Hotel Marketing

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The largest privately owned hotel group in Britain – Macdonald Hotels & Resorts – has signed with global channel manager, SiteMinder, to boost its online exposure by connecting the group’s reservation and rate management systems with online booking sites around the world.

Boasting a portfolio of over 45 hotels, ranging from 3 to 5 stars across the UK, Macdonald Hotels & Resorts has partnered with online distributor SiteMinder, to automatically connect Opera ORS, it’s Central Reservations System (CRS) and its IDeaS Revenue Management System (RMS) with the world’s leading reservation sites from SiteMinder’s one, central cloud application.

Head of Sales for SiteMinder in the UK and Ireland, Bernhard Ballin, said hotel groups around the world were under mounting pressure to deliver revenue performance in increasingly competitive markets and SiteMinder had seen a huge demand from companies such as Macdonald Hotels & Resorts looking to combat this scenario with online distribution solutions that delivered fast, seamless and cost effective, two-way integrations with high-yielding booking platforms.

“Since SiteMinder launched in the UK two years ago, we have seen our hotel client portfolio grow rapidly as groups such as Macdonald Hotels & Resorts seek robust and reliable products to streamline their online distribution, improve efficiency and stay ahead of the game,” Mr Ballin said. “We are delighted a major hotel group like Macdonald Hotels has chosen SiteMinder’s best-in-class technology solutions to integrate its CRS and revenue management systems with online booking sites.

“SiteMinder’s Channel Manager will automatically send live availability from Macdonald Hotels & Resorts’ Opera CRS along with rates from IDeaS directly to reservation sites around the world. When bookings are made on those sites, the Channel Manager instantly reduces inventory across all their sites and delivers details of all reservations back into Macdonald Hotels’ CRS. This saves hours of manual labour and improves business efficiencies– all while paying a low, flat, monthly fee for the service.

“The result is a complete two-way CRS connectivity switch platform, providing access to thousands of global and regional online booking channels for a flat monthly rate, helping hotel groups improve business efficiency and drive down the cost of acquisition.”

The Revenue Director for Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, Stephen Dodman, said: “Our decision to work with SiteMinder gives us a reliable, two-way interface to online distribution, delivering real-time availability and inventory across channels, further improving the efficiency of our business and helping to drive revenue performance. In addition, SiteMinder will give the guest greater visibility of availability across our hotels in real-time. We have been really impressed by the commitment of the SiteMinder team to meet our tight deadlines and to provide us with a reliable interface in which we can have absolute confidence.”

Related Link: SiteMinder