The 2020 is by no means the most challenging year for the hospitality business for decades. Except for the lucky niche companies offering for example doomsday shelters for super-rich or properties with high demand from local tourists there are not many properties, tour agencies, airlines or any other company related to hospitality in the whole world that has not suffered from the consequences of the pandemic. To some extent government support programs, additional funding, or the timely lifting of quarantine rules could to some extent ease the pain, but can not solve the major problem of less demand in tourism. This will lead to a makeover of hospitality companies at the pace difficult to predict.

It is with great regret that we announce the closure of the projects WonderWeekend and Nastani.bg, with whom our products have been integrated and we have worked hand in hand for several years. The companies had to make a very difficult decision to close their projects due to the coronavirus epidemic. Both systems do not accept new reservations on their website anymore and currently providers are putting their main efforts to develop other projects, which got significantly less damage from the crisis.

Due to this situation, the YieldPlanet Channel Manager integrations with WonderWeekend and Nastani.bg have been discontinued.

“Due to many complications related to COVID-19, we made a difficult decision – to close our project Nastani.bg.’,- reports co-founder of Grabo.bg (Nastani.bg).

We were glad to be a part of such successful and useful integrations and to have a chance to work with Nastani.bg and WonderWeekend. We wish both companies prosperity and great success in other projects. 

If you have any questions regarding your connection with providers mentioned above, please let us know here: support@yieldplanet.com. 

Latest YieldPlanet Integrations
YieldPlanet and HQ revenue have integrated Market Intelligence and Price Optimizer RMS!
YieldPlanet and OTA Insight have integrated Rate Insight and Price Optimizer RMS!
KWHotel update: even more functional connection with YieldPlanet

We are very proud to be integrated with over 450 partners and the list of our connections is constantly growing. Meet our latest integrations, which can help you to develop a daily routine, achieve much more and get much better results of your work:

Obehotel de Efimatica is a technology company that offers booking engine solution ObeHotel. This booking engine provides you a complete and intuitive online reservation system to increase direct sales. You can now connect your ObeHotel booking engine to YieldPlanet Channel Manager and optimize your property online management.

HotelCard is a membership-based hotel booking platform that gives travelers access to discounted hotel rates. At the same time properties benefit from saving on commission fees. The Hotelcard booking portal is connected to YieldPlanet, so that prices and availability on Hotelcard are always actual and bookings are directly transferred into the hotel’s PMS.

We and our partners are constantly evolving to be even more useful to you.  It helps our clients reach global and regional markets, simplify everyday work and maximize a revenue of their business. Meet major updates to established channels:

Alojapro is a Booking Engine specialized in effectively increasing direct hotel reservations. We are glad to communicate that we released a new way to manage the connection between Alojapro and YieldPlanet that supports delivering inventory from Alojapro engine into the Channel Manager. For more information and use cases please contact: sales.spain@yieldplanet.com

HRS orders guaranteed by credit card are saved and displayed with card details in YieldPlanet channel manager. Details visible in the Channel Manager include card type, holder name, number and expiry date. Please note that not all orders come with credit cards as HRS is a great source of business orders paid charged in a different way than with credit card. As PSD2 directive deadline set for December 31st 2020 is approaching fast YieldPlanet expects more focus from OTA side on processing payments and sharing virtual credit cards.

Agoda supports fully-fledged occupancy based pricing from now on. This feature benefits all properties including vacation rentals with advanced pricing structure needs. Please expect more notifications on migrating existing properties to new Agoda connection soon.

Do you want to learn more about each of these partners? Visit our Interactive Integration List page to get more information about YieldPlanet’s integrations.

If you have any questions please contact support@yieldplanet.com.

You might also be interested in reading:

YieldPlanet and HQ revenue have integrated Market Intelligence and Price Optimizer RMS!
YieldPlanet and OTA Insight have integrated Rate Insight and Price Optimizer RMS!
KWHotel update: even more functional connection with YieldPlanet
Free e-book about guest communication tools

HQ revenue is a leading-edge platform in the revenue management technology landscape providing accurate, real-time market data to hoteliers and revenue managers, and YieldPlanet, the provider of advanced distribution tools for maximization of the revenue in the hospitality industry, are today announcing the integration of Market Intelligence and Price Optimizer RMS.

Market Intelligence is one of the most frequently used rate shopping tools by YieldPlanet customers, especially in the DACH region. The combined strength of a market data provider and a company focused on distribution in the hospitality industry will create exceptional value for their common clients. Hoteliers using HQ revenue Market Intelligence will be able to precisely automate their revenue management strategies on all channels against their market competition.

Price Optimizer remains the only RMS on the market with a fully integrated channel manager. Thanks to this, it can not only dynamically calculate prices, availability and restrictions for each product independently but also precisely distribute them over the channels in real-time.

In the difficult pandemic period, competition between hotels is even stronger than before. At the same time, human resources are often limited. High-quality data usage and revenue management automation become a necessary factor for success in the hospitality industry.

Both companies will continue the work on further integration of their products.

About HQ revenue:
HQ revenue, a brand of HQ plus GmbH, is a Berlin-based SaaS hotel technology provider with over 10,000 users worldwide. Since 2012, the company’s mission is to be the heart of every hotel’s winning revenue strategy. It aggregates and analyzes data in real-time, providing hotels—from boutique properties to global chains—with the most useful information. Technical integrations include more than 60 of the best software solutions in the industry. HQ revenue is a team of 35 international colleagues, many of them hotel industry experts.

You might also be interested in reading:

YieldPlanet and OTA Insight have integrated Rate Insight and Price Optimizer RMS!
KWHotel update: even more functional connection with YieldPlanet
Free e-book about guest communication tools
Transitioning from short stay tourism to the mid-term housing market for a sustainable rental income

YieldPlanet, provider of advanced distribution tools for maximisation of the revenue in the hospitality industry and OTA Insight, the leading cloud-based data intelligence platform for the hospitality industry announce the integration of Rate Insight and Price Optimizer RMS.

Rate Insight is one of the most used rate shopping tools by YieldPlanet customers. Integrated solutions will build on the strengths of both partners and bring powerful functionalities to their common customers. Hoteliers using Rate Insight and Price Optimizer RMS products will be able to precisely automate their revenue management strategies on all connected channels against the market competition.

Price Optimizer remains the only RMS on the market with an integrated channel manager –  it not only dynamically calculates prices, availability and restrictions independently for each property, but also distributes them over channels in real-time.

During these challenging times, the competition between hotels is even stronger than before. Additionally, human resources are often limited. High-quality data usage and revenue management automation are a necessary factor for success in the hospitality industry. Both companies will continue the work on further integration and innovation of their products.

About OTA Insight

OTA Insight empowers hoteliers to make smarter revenue and distribution decisions through its market-leading suite of cloud-based business intelligence solutions including Market Insight, Rate Insight, Parity Insight and Revenue Insight. With live updates, 24/7 support from our customer success team, and a highly intuitive and customisable dashboard, the OTA Insight platform integrates with other industry tools including hotel property management systems, leading RMS solutions and data benchmarking providers.

OTA Insight’s team of international experts are based all over the world, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Australia and India, and supports more than 50,000 properties in 168 countries. Named the UK’s 17th fastest-growing private technology company in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 in 2019, Number 103 in the FT/Statista list of Europe’s 1000 fastest growing companies in 2020,  Best Rate Shopping & Market Intelligence Solution in the 2020 HotelTechAwards, and Number 38 in the Sunday Times Sage Tech Track 100, OTA Insight is widely recognised as a leader in hospitality business intelligence.

We are happy to inform that YieldPlanet has reached a Premier Partner Status in Booking.com for 2020. Booking.com is a leading OTA worldwide and a leader in measuring overall performance and grant standard, advanced and premier status to its channel manager partners. Yieldplanet has earned premier which highest status is granted for another year in a row.

Being a premier partner of Booking.com is a great privilege and prize but also hard work in proving excellence in various areas. We are looking forward to 2020 opportunities that premier partnership brings to YieldPlanet and all its users.

During February event for premier partners in Amsterdam we were delighted to hear that Booking.com is going to focus greatly on boosting hotel revenues this year as this is YieldPlanet’s goal as well.

“As an outstanding channel manager among the closest competitors, YieldPlanet keeps increasing hotels revenue through online channels and we will do our best to be on a growth path also in 2020.”

Paweł Rytel, Product Manager

All YieldPlanet users will benefit much from YieldPlanet’s premier partner status. YieldPlanet is granted not only fast and efficient premier support from Booking.com but also a lot of business advice and growth opportunities. As a premier partner of Booking.com we are obliged to deliver newest products supported by Booking.com fast and stay in tune all the time.

“Delivering the highest quality of product requires from YieldPlanet constant activity in keeping IT infrastructure and all solutions in perfect health (condition) all the time. We are proud of being a leader in real time reservation delivery for YieldPlanet’s users as well as of pace of rates and allotment sending to Booking.com.”

Tomasz Fitulski, Chief Information Officer

You might also be interested in reading:

Price strategies that support increase in revenues
YieldPlanet among Airbnb’s 2020 Preferred Software Partners
Occupancy based pricing in Booking.com

Malvern Group incorporating Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited and Late Rooms Limited has filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator on 1st August 2019 and have ceased trading with immediate effect. Both firms had about 53,000 customers between them, involving 20,000 bookings. The collapse has been widely commented in the British media.

Malvern Group said about 400 Super Break customers were on holiday in the UK or overseas.

Super Break was a member of Abta and, according to the travel trade body, most customers should be able to get a refund. Those already away should be able to continue with their holiday as normal.

However, people who booked accommodation-only through Super Break are being asked to pay again, because Malvern Group has cancelled those bookings and only package trips are financially covered through Abta.

Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited

Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited is not accepting any further bookings.

For customers with bookings due to travel beyond 1st August 2019 or currently on a break: if you have made a booking with a travel agent/partner, you should contact the travel agent/partner in the first instance.

The contact center is no longer operational and therefore will not be available for further queries.

Hotel-Only Breaks

Forthcoming bookings are now cancelled. If you are currently on a break, you may be asked to pay again, so ensure you keep your receipt.

As your reservation was Hotel-Only, it is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

Package Bookings (Excluding Flight Inclusive Breaks)

As you had made a package booking with Superbreak Mini Holidays Limited, your break should be financially protected by ABTA – The Travel Association.

Further information can be found at ABTA.com/SuperBreak.

Flight Inclusive Breaks and Incredible North Iceland Charter

As you have made a reservation for a flight inclusive break which is covered by the Civil Aviation Authority ATOL scheme, you should visit page for more information.

Super Break Gift Vouchers and Entertainment/Attraction Tickets Only

These services are no longer valid/accepted. It is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

This service is now cancelled. As your reservation was for entertainment/attraction ticket only, it is recommended that where you have paid by credit/debit card that you contact your bank/credit card provider.

Late Rooms Limited (Trading as LateRooms.com)

In relation to your forthcoming booking(s), LateRooms.com acted as an agent on behalf of your accommodation supplier, therefore it is anticipated that your reservation is secure and your payment will be taken by the accommodation supplier either in advance (for non-refundable reservations) or at the property.

LATE ROOMS LIMITED HAVE NOT TAKEN ANY PAYMENT FOR YOUR BOOKING.

It is recommended, however, that you contact your accommodation supplier directly prior to travelling to confirm. To amend or cancel your booking you will need to contact the accommodation supplier directly.

The contact center is no longer operational and therefore will not be available for further queries.

For more information, click here. 

Modern technology has established itself in hotels for good and it seems like this is unlikely to change in the near future. Quite the contrary: the expectations of guests and their shopping habits change quickly, forcing hotels to continually modify their offer and adjust their online distribution strategy. Another revolution is happening as we speak – the ability to book rooms with the use of virtual assistants. Right now, this functionality is only offered by the Mountain View giant, but due to the growing trend of using virtual assistants and dynamic development of such solutions it will not be long before its competitors rise to the challenge. 

Where did it all start?

The market for virtual assistant has been growing for several years now, and the battle for the position of the leader and creation of the most helpful assistant is becoming increasingly fiercer. It all started in 2011, when the world heard about virtual assistants for the first time during the official launch of the iPhone 4S. It was accompanied by the first appearance of Siri – an intelligent personal assistant which recognises the users’ natural speech, replies to their questions and performs the tasks it’s been entrusted with. While Siri’s capabilities were very limited at the time, the dynamic growth of the technology made it possible to surprise the users of Apple smartphones on a regular basis and implement new functionalities. It was not long before Apple’s competitors presented their own solutions. In 2014, Amazon’s Alexa debuted on the market and two years later so did Google Assistant. This moment initiated a real race whose goal remains unchanged to this day – to use artificial intelligence and process natural language so as to respond to requests of the increasingly demanding and innovation-hungry market.

Although the solution offered by the Mountain View giant is the youngest one, from the point of view of the hotel industry it is certainly the most interesting one. This is all due to the functionality presented to the global audience last January in Las Vegas during the largest consumer electronics fair in the world – CES 2019. Naturally, this refers to the ability to book hotel rooms with the use of Google Assistant. Although its functionalities are now available to users through various channels, including Google Home products, smart TVs, smartphones and even cars, the ability to book hotels is only available on mobile devices for the time being.

What does the ability to book hotel rooms mean for the hotel industry?

From the perspective of Google Assistant users, the new functionality is likely no breakthrough, but for hoteliers it is a real revolution for which they should start preparing now. There is already talk of it being a real turning point for the industry, one which will force hotels to quickly reorganise their existing distribution strategies in line with the “adapt or die” principle. It will pose a major threat to facilities resistant to new technologies, but for the ones which readily and quickly adapt to the changing environment it will be a chance for dynamic growth and acquisition of a greater share in the market. It is also a good chance to defend or even increase the share of direct bookings.

There is no denying that the new possibilities will have a great impact on how users browse the Internet and plan their travels. The question is: how many of the bookings will be made using virtual assistants? Some studies indicate that we are approaching a real revolution in this field, as in the next two years voice searches may account for as much as half of all searches! Statista analysts believe that Google Assistant will greatly strengthen its position. While in 2017 the Google product could only boast a 25% share in the market in intelligent virtual assistants, in 2020 the share will amount to as much as 43%. At the same time, Alexa will suffer a drop from 62% to 34%. The remaining market players, on the other hand, will increase their share from 13% to 23%. Such major changes in the market share are mainly connected with the fact that virtual assistants are most often used on smartphones. The market in intelligent loudspeakers which Amazon is associated with is several times smaller than the mobile phone market. How much smaller? Google Assistant is currently used by more than a billion devices, which means an increase of 400 million compared with the previous year. In the case of Alexa, the statistics are much less impressive, as it is used by slightly more than 100 million devices.

The development of the market as well as the steadily growing number of devices which are connected to the Internet (Internet of Things) suggest that the change in customer habits in the scope of room bookings may significantly shake up the existing online distribution model and force both hotels and OTAs to redefine their existing strategies.

What exactly can Google offer?

Google’s competitive edge results mainly from the fact that the Mountain View giant has access to a massive database of hotel offers which neither Apple nor Amazon currently has. We can therefore assume that the new functionality offered by Google Assistant will constitute a major competitive advantage at least for a while. What does booking a room with the use of Google Assistant look like now?

Currently, the new functionality is only offered to English-speaking users of iOS or Android mobile devices who live in the United States. The booking process itself is extremely simple and intuitive and can be carried out both via text and voice input thanks to the use of artificial intelligence and the Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology. For instance, when searching for a hotel room in Barcelona, the user only needs to say: “I need to book a hotel room in Barcelona,” and the assistant will ask about the date of stay and present a list of recommended facilities. In order to narrow it down, the user needs to provide the assistant with more details about their preferences – e.g. “Show only hotels close to the city centre with pools.”

The next step is selection of the facility where the user is planning to stay, which can be done both using voice and by clicking. A moment later, the assistant will present the available offers from various OTAs as well as from the hotel’s booking engine and ask the user to select one. Confirmation of the booking, preceded by a short overview of the booking and the related costs, lets the user proceed to the final step, i.e. payment for the booking (naturally, the recommended method is payment with Google Pay). Once the transaction has been finalised, the assistant informs the user that it was completed successfully and sends the booking details to their email address.

Can it be any simpler than that? It certainly can, but we will have to wait at least a couple of months for more details. The dynamic growth of the industry suggests that Google’s competitors will also start offering similar solutions and Google itself will continuously work on surprising its users more and more and offer an even more intuitive and customised travel planning experience.

YieldPlanet has established a new connection with Apaleo. The two-way integration enables hoteliers to connect YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager directly from Apaleo’s store.

Apaleo is an easy-to-use property management system that connects to all your favorite hotel technology. With a simple set up and no upfront costs, hotels can be up and running in no time. Apaleo’s PMS is built with a connectivity layer (API) first approach. With this in mind, it`s the world`s only PMS where every single piece of data is accessible and available for the third-party integrations. Innovative, pre-integrated tools within the Apaleo store can be connected with the click of a button. With all of these tech pains out of the way, hotels can focus on leveraging technology to better serve guests, automate tasks, and increase revenue.

“When we started to build Apaleo, we wanted to make it simple for any system to integrate in just few seconds, without waiting times and additional costs.” said Andrea Stubbe, co-founder atApaleo.

“We are very excited for this two-way integration with YieldPlanet, which allows hoteliers to surpass the challenges of online distribution and revenue management.” said Andrea Stubbe, co-founder at Apaleo.

Two-way integration enables hoteliers to connect YieldPlanet’s Channel Manager directly from Apaleo’s store to deliver powerful, easy to use distribution and revenue management solutions.

“Various high-profile client requests from multiple markets have put the integration with Apaleo a high priority for us. Having our management team met Apaleo’s representatives at ITB in Berlin this March has confirmed that their product is extremely flexible to use and offers hoteliers who use it a fantastic PMS experience,” says Claudio Limacher, CEO at YieldPlanet.

Click here to see the full list of the partners YieldPlanet is integrated with.

YieldPlanet has established a new connection with Apaleo – the provider of a PMS solution of the new generation. The product is extremely flexible to use and integrate with other systems, and offers a fantastic PMS experience. In reply to various client requests, we are happy to have Apaleo among the PMSes we are integrated with. And guess what: these guys are huge fans of Avengers! How cool is that?

YieldPlanet has established a new connection with Smartbox Group – the pioneer European and worldwide leader in the experience gift market. YieldPlanet’s clients can connect to Smartbox and benefit from this platform. The connection allows YieldPlanet clients to have the reservations sent automatically to their PMS.

YieldPlanet has established a new connection with Smartbox Group – the pioneer European and worldwide leader in the experience gift market.

How does it work? Smartbox creates themed experience gift boxes in Stays, Gastronomic, Wellbeing and Adventure categories. These are presented to customers in retailers and online in high quality gift boxes, gift cards and e-boxes online. Hoteliers, with guidance from the Smartbox team, choose experience offers to promote in the gift boxes in retailers across Europe.

The boxes are purchased as gifts at seasons such as Christmas and Valentines Day. The recipient chooses an experience from all that are offered in the gift box. They select chosen property on Smartbox.com, reserve and visit the chosen venue. The gift box voucher redeems automatically during the booking process, and Smartbox then reimburses the property.

The Smartbox Marketing Platform is an incremental, non-standard way to promote your hotel without cannibalising direct bookings, promoting your venue across 18,000 touchpoints in Europe.

Now, YieldPlanet’s clients can connect to Smartbox and benefit from this platform. The connection allows YieldPlanet clients to have the reservations sent automatically to their PMS.

About Smartbox
Smartbox Group operates in 11 European countries with 9 well-known brands (Bongo (BE/NL), Odisseias (PT), Red Letter Day & BuyAGift (UK), Dakotabox (ES, FR), and the European #1, Smartbox (IE, FR, ES, IT, DK, SE, CH) :
• selling 7 million gift experiences per year,
• retailing in 18,000 dept stores, electronic stores, hyper markets, and own brand stores across Europe
• working with over 42,000 partners worldwide (including 17,000 Hotels)

The company achieved a revenues of >€500 million in 2018.

What does Smartbox NOT do:
• Cannibalise existing channels
• Discount your rates
• Charge a set-up fee or membership fee

“As the market leader in gift experiences, Smartbox Group continues to be innovative. Our development team have worked hard at integrating Smartbox as a new channel with YieldPlanet, which has become our very first channel manager connection. Hotels now have easy stock management and the opportunity to boost their presence within the gift experience market and have access to 2 million room night bookings a year through Smartbox Group.” – says Riccardo Benvenuti, Trade Marketing Manager at Smartbox.

Not yet our client? Order Channel Manager and benefit from Yieldplanet’s partners’ offer.

Redistributing of inventories and reselling offers from one channel on another is not a new thing but with the more widespread use the booking-basic rate on Booking.com in European hotels since December 2018, the rate leakage topic has been fueled again.

A good summary of how booking basic works has been published first in July 2018 by our partner Mirai or by Triptease in a full white paper.

In summary, with OTA’s usage of leaked rates, hoteliers could have a serious parity issue which also could lead to a conversion issue on their direct channel. That is besides the issue of not respecting the restrictions on the wholesale and packaged rates.

Hotelbeds, one of the potentially accused providers of leaked rates, has recently entered the discussion by clearly opposing rate leakage. Hotelbeds is saying that they are not encouraging or supporting rates leakages and is not making available to any of these channels those FIT rates that are meant to be packaged. Additionally, the wholesaler assures to be taking a stance proactively to ensure that their customers don’t use those rates in that way. Hotelbeds will be watching out for anyone we feel is doing this and will take action where necessary to stop it, if necessary penalizing and disconnecting customers who take advantage, as the company understands and shares the concern or its hotel partners.

Hotelbeds also claims that it has recently taken two steps to proactively deal with this situation: first of all, segmenting their distribution by leveraging the advanced data analytics capabilities and secondly, significantly increasing the size of the team dedicated to monitoring this area. However, this is so far limited to FIT rates.

According to Sam Turner, Director of Wholesale Sales & Sourcing, Hotelbeds, the best way to prevent leakage is to work with fewer but better quality wholesale partners. It is important that their partner not only offers solutions to resolve this challenge, but that they also fully respect a hotel’s needs: only distribution partners with a long-term, win-win approach should be considered viable. The full interview with Sam Turner, Director of Wholesale Sales & Sourcing, Hotelbeds is available here. 

Has your property suffered from the negative consequences from rate leakages? Would you like to know more how to thoroughly control your online distribution? Get in contact with the expert team at YieldPlanet to discuss your individual online distribution.