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Serenata Hotels and Resorts
With 15 boutique locations SERENATA Hotels and Resorts run a chain of properties across the busiest and most picturesque tourist hotspots in Thailand.
Positioned in a highly competitive market, one of the greatest challenges for the group was the inability to increase room bookings without dedicating more time and resources.
To combat these difficulties and find a means to deliver their desired results, SiteMinder’s Channel Manager was selected as the application of choice.
Within the first year of deployment The SERENATA Group was able to double online revenue, and sell its rooms on the world’s major online booking sites.
Previously most of their guests originated from Europe, but with the help of SiteMinder’s Channel Manager they were able to extend their client base to other countries, experiencing a growth in guests from the Asian, Australian and the Middle Eastern markets.
“SiteMinder’s Channel Manager is fast and easy to use and significantly reduces the time it takes us to manage room allotment”
CHATCHAWAN SOORANGuRA,MARKETING AND BRAND DIRECTOR, SERENATA GROUP.
SERENATA’s Group Marketing and Brand Director, Chatchawan Soorangura, explains that before the company forged its first distribution partnership with SiteMinder in 2012, the group did not use a channel manager system, with reservation staff at each property managing online inventory with up to seven online travel agents (OTAs) on their own.
“It took around 15 minutes for our staff to manually update each OTA, which added up to many hours of over time, and also considerable time to manually process reservations so it was an arduous and laborious process,” Mr Soorangura said. “But with an increasing number of bookings coming from the internet, we saw a need to work with additional OTAs so we partnered with SiteMinder to maximise our presence online,” Mr Soorangura said. “SiteMinder’s Channel Manager is fast and easy to use and significantly reduces the time it takes us to manage room allotment.
“SiteMinder’s pooled inventory system has proved a major key to our online growth. With a Channel Manager onboard, we are now listed with 10 OTAs and our properties will be selling on more sites soon to extend our online distribution, which is crucial to our growth. This was not possible when we were updating OTAs manually.”
Mr Soorangura said that overall, SERENATA’s recent web-based marketing, including intensive online campaigns, had resulted in a tripling of online revenue, with SiteMinder’s Channel Manager responsible for around two thirds of that growth – or a doubling of online income.
“SiteMinder’s pooled inventory system has proved a major key to our online growth. It means we can adjust room inventory with our connected OTAs in seconds.”
“SiteMinder’s pooled inventory system has proved a major key to our online growth. It means we can adjust room inventory with our connected OTAs in seconds.”
“Since we started using SiteMinder’s pooled inventory system in April, 2012, we can now adjust rates and room inventory with our connected OTAs in seconds, helping us achieve efficient yield management with no anxiety about overbookings. Whenever bookings are made on the OTAs we are connected to, SiteMinder’s Channel Manager automatically reduces our inventory across all the sites and in our own reservation system. It’s just not possible to control and adjust all the pricing and inventory if you don’t have a good system such as SiteMinder’s Channel Manager.
“In addition, our staff now has more time to focus on promotions with each OTA, pricing strategies and enhancing the experience for guests when they arrive at one of our hotels or resorts.”
Mr Soorangura said an average of 45 per cent of bookings for its group of Thai resorts were now sourced from the internet, although web-based reservations for its hotel in Bangkok comprised up to 95 per cent of bookings.
“With the internet becoming more vital every day to our operations, channel management has become integral to the way we do business at SERENATA and we look forward to a long and lucrative partnership with SiteMinder in the years ahead.”
