Hotel Booking Engines – Driving up business on auto club sites
The accommodation booking sites of all the States’ big motoring clubs will soon beef up the number of hotels their combined 6.8 million members can book after their tourism body, AAA Tourism, this week finalised a connection with major online accommodation distributor and hotel booking engine provider, SiteMinder.
The partnership between AAA Tourism and SiteMinder also means the thousands of properties that use SiteMinder’s channel management or hotel booking systems to sell and manage their room availability on websites around the world will soon have a huge new market via the accommodation reservation sites of the RACV in Victoria, NRMA in NSW, RACQ in QLD, RAA in SA, RAC in WA, RACT in Tasmania and AANT in the NT.
AAA Tourism is the national tourism body of the Australian Automobile Association which represents each of the State and Territory motoring bodies, which are the largest clubs in Australia with a combined membership of 6.8 million motorists. AAA Tourism manages the STAR Ratings system for accommodation around Australia.
AAA Tourism General Manager of Sales, Liz Price, said the aim of the SiteMinder link was to significantly boost the number of hotels motorists could book on all the auto clubs’ accommodation sites.
“SiteMinder is the largest channel manager in this region so we chose them to help us build our hotel inventory so we can compete better as a booking engine for our 6.8 million members around Australia,” Ms Price said. “We expect that by the end of the year motorists will be able to book the thousands of hotels SiteMinder will bring to our club websites. These sites are incredibly popular with members so our link with SiteMinder is a major boost for hotels wanting more online bookings and also a bonus for our members seeking a bigger choice of accommodation they can book with us.”SiteMinder General Manger of Sales and Marketing, Gary Fog, said the addition of AAA Tourism’s club websites to its expanding list of major international booking sites would generate targeted and lucrative new business for SiteMinder’s accommodation customers. “Our new link with AAA Tourism will put our customers’ rooms in front of millions of motor club members who love to travel.” Mr Fog said.
SiteMinder already provides hotel inventory to the accommodation booking site of the New Zealand Automobile Association (NZAA), aatravel.co.nz. This follows the partnership last year between AAA Tourism and NZAA, known as Club Tourism Publishing.