How HotelHub Achieved a 25% Increase in Offline Booking Revenue for a Global TMC

The client

A global travel management company (TMC) with a footprint in more than 100 countries. Struggling with revenue leakage on negotiated rates, they asked HotelHub to come up with a solution that would help them manage offline allocations.

Key challenges

Agent productivity

Dependency on a fulfilment centre for each offline booking

Revenue leakage

Industry background

Many TMCs and corporates have contracted and negotiated rates with certain property types, such as hotels and serviced apartments. These rates are not available online through a GDS, OTA or channel manager.

When these property types are not available online, it becomes difficult to access real-time data. The inventory management, rate management and booking process involve manual intervention and require a fulfilment centre to handle the bookings.

In many cases, this tedious manual process leads to revenue leakage.

The problem

Offline bookings were causing a huge drain on productivity and revenue for the TMC in question.

Even offline hotel bookings made through fulfilment centres involved multiple manual steps, such as calling the hotelier and checking for real-time availability. As a result, a simple booking could take 30 minutes or more.

While online bookings made through a GDS or OTA would automatically capture all the segment data, around 15% of bookings are made offline. For these bookings, the agent would need to manually add the segments into the PNR – a step that was often missed.

Consequently, there was a huge gap in reporting – and tracking offline hotel bookings and their commissions was proving difficult.

The HotelHub solution

After identifying the business problem, HotelHub created a stand-alone web-based allocation management system called Extranet.

The solution allows hoteliers and TMCs to create and access hotel allocations and to manage rates and inventories in real-time.
It connects to the HotelHub booking platform and works seamlessly with standard HotelHub features such as hotel search, booking and cancellation.
Multiple languages, currencies and payment modes are supported. Region-specific taxes and fees can also be applied.
Agencies can add mark-ups and commissions to the loaded rates.
Photos, descriptions and reviews can be added to the property.
The solution does not require any installation; TMCs and hoteliers can access it from any PC with an internet connection. It can also be integrated with GDS and OTAs via XML.

Key achievements

25% increase in total revenue

Increased agent productivity

The Result

Implementation of HotelHub’s Extranet dramatically improved productivity for the customer and they recorded a 25% increase in revenue from offline bookings.

They can now generate reports and compare the commission collected against actual numbers, leading to improved data on rates and on the total commission by hotel. These reports have also ensured better compliance, allowing the TMC to monitor and blacklist hotels as needed if they fall short.