NATIONAL REPORT—Hospitality tech providers have been making moves—partnering with new brands and partnering with each other. Here’s a few of the latest strategic team ups.
Zaplox Expands Mobile Key Services Partnership With SkiStar
Zaplox recently signed an expanded agreement with SkiStar, an operator of Alpine ski resorts throughout Sweden, Norway and Austria. Under the newly expanded agreement, SkiStar properties that are equipped with digital key room access technology will now be able to further enhance the guest experience by implementing the new Zaplox SDK solution and further customize their proprietary mobile apps.
With a 42% market share, SkiStar is recognized as one of the largest operators of Alpine ski resorts in the Scandinavian region, with more than 6,500 cabins and apartments under its management. The group has been a Zaplox customer since 2011, the same year that Zaplox began making its solutions commercially available.
The new SDK solution, which was released in 2016, will give SkiStar the added ability to integrate their own resort mobile apps with Zaplox digital key technology. This feature ensures that guests experience a simple and seamless mobile check-in, digital room key assignment and checkout process with the use of a single, comprehensive mobile app, according to the company.
MyHotelShop Enables eRevMax to Expand Meta-Search Distribution
Hotel distribution expert eRevMax has established two-way connectivity with meta-search management solutions provider MyHotelShop. Mutual hotel customers can now update rate and availability to TripAdvisor, Trivago and Kayak to get more direct booking traffic through RateTiger and LIVE OS interface.
“Meta-search engines have become an important marketing channel for hotels. Following this integration, hotel customers can leverage the real-time rate and availability distribution across multiple meta-search sites. Due to the complexities of the bid management process, a managed service for meta-search channels makes it easier for hotels from a digital marketing perspective based upon a monthly advertising budget,” said Ullrich Kastner, managing director & founder, MyHotelShop.
“This integration give our hotel clients a bid management solution for better positioning in meta-search channels and drives potential guests to brand website for more direct bookings. It is a highly effective tool that will allow our customers to reach out to a much larger audience and offer an extended scope for improving direct bookings through an ecosystem of meta-search sites,” said Ashis Saha, SVP – project management, eRevMax.
BulkTV Partners With Samsung
Bulk TV& Internet has partnered with Samsung Electronics America Inc. to offer Samsung Hospitality TVs and installation services as a complement to the company’s DIRECTV coax and IPTV content delivery platforms.
The further diversification of Bulk TV’s product offering simplifies vendor management for hotel staff plus offers additional packaged discounts. According to the company, hoteliers can benefit from substantial equipment and installation reductions when they bundle the purchase of Samsung Hospitality TVs with a DIRECTV Technicolor COM2000 headend system and the Samsung REACH 4.0 Content Management Solution featuring a customized user interface and interactive program guide.
For a limited time and with a minimum purchase of 50 TVs, hoteliers can enjoy complete solution discounts, which include 50% Samsung REACH 4.0 Content Management Solution; $500 Samsung REACH installation credit; and $20 per TV off standard installation from Bulk TV.
“Samsung and Bulk TV are partnering to provide hoteliers with affordable solutions that elevate the guest experience and yield greater customer satisfaction,” said Jonas Tanenbaum, VP of Samsung’s Hospitality TV Division. “The Samsung Hospitality TVs with REACH 4.0 Content Management Solution along with the Bulk TV installation provides an avenue for any hotel, at any size and infrastructure, to implement technology that hotel guests have come to expect.”
Duetto Expands In Caribbean
Duetto has spread its cloud-based solutions to a key property in the Caribbean, signing an agreement with Half Moon, a luxury resort in Jamaica.
Duetto expanded its reach in the Caribbean in 2016 by partnering with Sandals Resorts. Its agreement with Half Moon establishes Duetto’s flagship application, GameChanger, as the resort’s solution for optimizing room pricing and digital distribution.
Half Moon will also adopt ScoreBoard, Duetto’s intelligent reporting application, and BlockBuster, its application for optimizing contracted and group business. Half Moon’s investment in the three cloud-based solutions is part of a multi-year, $75-million overhaul, which will expand the resort’s capacity to nearly 240 rooms, said Sandro Fabris, the resort’s general manager.
Local Measure Adds Two Luxury Hotel Brands
Social Guest Intelligence provider Local Measure has partnered with two luxury hotel brands, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, wrapping up a year of expansion that brought the company’s proprietary social intelligence platform to hotels in more than 600 cities around the world.
Local Measure’s CEO and Founder, Jonathan Barouch, said, “In addition to our luxury presence, we now also partner with four of the five biggest brands in the industry worldwide. Utilizing our social intelligence platform, properties at an increasing number of hotels have been able to take personalization to a new level, building loyalty and increasing guest satisfaction where it counts—during a guest’s stay on property.”