Berjaya Hotels & Resorts, a member of the Berjaya Corp. Group of Companies, has engaged SiteMinder to take back control of the increasing disparity between its online room rates. The chain, which offers travelers more than 3,000 rooms across the Asia Pacific and U.K., has adopted SiteMinder’s distribution technology to better influence and manage how its inventory is shared, the company said. Berjaya Hotels & Resorts encompasses 18 properties from luxury to midscale brands in Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Japan and the U.K.
“The disparity issue is getting more and more serious. It’s become a trend,” Irvine Loo, director of digital marketing at Berjaya Hotels, said in a statement. “There will always be loopholes and, while we can’t be across every instance of a third party compromising our distribution platforms, we want to act quickly when it does happen. We want to be able to tackle the issue effectively, at both the group and individual property level.”
For Loo, who oversees the chainwide online marketing function for Berjaya, the greatest challenge is maintaining a price point that reflects the brands of the hotel group, he said.
“Travelers today are used to getting the best offers and deals online, but it is important that our pricing reflects quality,” he said. “SiteMinder’s technology has made it easy to achieve exactly this. Bookings for Berjaya Hotels & Resorts are coming in faster than ever before, which means we need to be dynamic to drive revenue. My team could no longer afford to continue managing the extranets of our distribution channel partners separately, or to check the accuracy of our room rates with a credit card. I can now monitor and manage it all through SiteMinder, plus the integration of the platform with our property-management system gives me comfort that it will not fail me.”