Hotel Bookings UK
SiteMinder, an Australian head quartered distribution channel management service that links hotels to online booking sites around the world, will open its first overseas office in London (UK) this month as part of major expansion plans that will see the distribution manager expand into the Asian Market as well.
SiteMinder management team member, Tobias Janiesch, moved recently from the company’s Sydney headquarters to the UK to head up the new London office – SiteMinder’s first overseas base since it began operations in Australia in 2006.
SiteMinder is already very active in the UK, with a number of hotels and guest houses who use the channel manager’s one-stop-shop technology to distribute their room inventory to the world’s major online booking sites. SiteMinder will soon hire staff in London to beef up its push into the UK and European markets, with aims to become a significant player in that market.
SiteMinder Managing Director Mike Ford said the new London office would form phase one of a major campaign to expand its business in Europe and Asia.
“The internet is the fastest growing source of bookings for accommodation providers today,” Mr Ford said. “We believe SiteMinder is the fastest, easiest and most affordable way for hotels to expose themselves to dozens of popular booking sites around the world which is why we will now pitch our one-stop-shop distribution services to properties in the UK and Europe, with plans to open offices in Asia soon as well.
“SiteMinder has grown rapidly since launching in Australia in 2006, connecting thousands of accommodation clients with dozens of leading online booking sites like Expedia, Wotif, Booking.com and Agoda that fill their beds.
“Instead of hotel staff needing to update their inventory on all these different booking sites, SiteMinder does it all for them and reservations from booking sites are automatically captured by SiteMinder and dropped directly back into hotels’ booking systems. This seamless, two-way integration slashes man hours and red tape and eliminates the need to manually re-key booking site reservation emails and faxes so it’s a great cost and time saver. And we don’t charge commission or lock clients into contracts which is another cost saver for hotels.”