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London, UK – SiteMinder’s 20,000 hotel customers now have access to traveller markets across the emerging African economy, thanks to the company’s latest partnership with Africa’s largest online travel agency, SafariNow.com.
SafariNow.com now joins more than 250 other online booking channels integrated into SiteMinder’s market-leading online distribution platform, The Channel Manager, which offers a real-time, two-way connection to more than 120 of the world’s top property management systems and central reservation systems to enable seamless delivery of rates, availability and reservations for hotels.
Tom Williams, chief operating officer at SafariNow.com, says: “In South Africa, alone, we currently have five times the number of establishments than the world’s most dominant online travel agencies. But while the majority of our establishments are located in and around that region – and across the entire African continent – we are growing our presence globally.
“We specifically chose to partner with SiteMinder to grow our supply of real-time bookable inventory both in Africa and globally, and to provide our accommodation establishment clients with a wider choice of reservation system integrations.”
With more than 23,000 listed accommodation establishments in Southern Africa and more than one million visitors each month, SafariNow.com is the largest and most established African-based accommodation booking network. The mobile-first website lists a wide range of accommodation options for travellers, from single-room houses to hotels and bed & breakfasts, as well as safari lodges, luxury yachts and castles.
Hotel customers of SiteMinder now have the opportunity to integrate SafariNow.com into their online distribution strategy to streamline their administration and directly reach the African traveller market. According to the UNWTO, Africa saw its tourism revenues increase by three percent to US$36 billion in 20141 while ForwardKeys has reported that arrivals on-the-book from October 2015 to March 2016 are running four percent higher than the same period last year2.
Lisa Horne, general manager – South Africa at SiteMinder, says, “SiteMinder is pleased to partner with SafariNow.com and provide our hotel customers yet another channel through which they can market and sell their inventory. SafariNow.com is particularly attractive for hotels as it offers highly competitive commissions from as low as five percent. And, with research showing that mobile is fast becoming the primary channel for African consumers to access the Internet3, SafariNow.com’s mobile-first website ensures that listed hotels are going to be found.”
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1 World generated US$1.5 trillion from travel in 2014, Travel Daily Media, 16 April 2015
2 Africa tourism set for sustained growth, HTrends, 5 October 2015
3 The Deloitte Consumer Review Africa: A 21st century view, Deloitte, 2014
Media contact
Maria Franco
+61 410 233 735
media@siteminder.com
About SiteMinder
As the leading cloud platform for hotels, SiteMinder allows hotels to attract, reach and convert guests across the globe. We serve hotels of all sizes with award-winning solutions for independents and groups alike, wherever they are in the world.
SiteMinder’s products include The Channel Manager, the industry’s leading online distribution platform; TheBookingButton, a wholly-branded booking engine for direct bookings via the web, mobile or social; Canvas, the intelligent website creator for independent hoteliers; and GDS by SiteMinder, a single-point of entry to a six-figure network of travel agents and the world’s major GDSs. With more than 20,000 hotel customers and 350 of the industry’s top connectivity providers as our partners, today we have presence in more than 160 countries on six continents.
For more information, visit www.siteminder.com.
About SafariNow.com
With over 23,000 listed establishments and more than a million monthly visitors, SafariNow.com is Africa’s biggest and most established accommodation booking network.
Pioneers of the web generation, we’ve come a long way from our humble beginnings in 1999, when the idea of using the Internet as a travelling tool was nothing but a pipedream. A decade and a half down the line, we’re now a team of 60, no less committed to the pursuit of breaking boundaries and blazing trails.
For more information, visit www.safarinow.com.