Choice Hotels International is officially transitioning to choiceEDGE, the first new global reservation system from a hotel company in more than 30 years. The distribution platform now supports more than 6,500 Choice Hotels properties globally.
ChoiceEDGE and its cloud-based design are built to handle the current and future volume on digital channels. The platform manages all distribution for Choice Hotels, optimizing rate, inventory, availability, shopping, booking and reservations for its website, mobile apps and third-party distribution partners.
This project, which began in 2014, is led by the Choice Hotels' technology innovation team, based in Phoenix, and is a milestone initiative for the company and recently appointed president and CEO Pat Pacious. Pacious announced the investment last year during a Q3 2017 earnings call. “Choice is a platform that handles more than $7 billion in transactions, and so we have made advancements in cloud computing, data analytics and mobile,” Pacious said at the time. “Our future depends on it.”
“There has been an explosion of growth in shopping requests and digital travel sales worldwide over the last decade. The industry’s old reservation systems are not designed to handle the volume and velocity of transactions we see today in the digital space,” Pacious said in a statement. “ChoiceEDGE harnesses the power of cloud computing and big-data analytics to help deliver value to both guests and franchisees, and leads the industry in capabilities. Through personalization and machine-learning, we are now able to create the intuitive experience guests want and provide data-driven, holistic solutions to boost efficiencies for our franchisees and throughout our value chain.”
Flexibility, scale and speed to market are components of the choiceEDGE platform’s design. As Choice Hotels continues its growth in the upscale and midscale segments and internationally, the choiceEDGE product will support its expanded system size, as well as multichannel distribution and mobile strategies.
By adopting choiceEDGE, Choice Hotels properties gain access to:
- Faster-to-market products, features and third-party connectivity.
- Cloud-based scalability, stability and performance delivered through a “reservation-as-a-service” model.
- Pre-configured connectivity with online travel agents, global distribution systems and property management systems, enabling rapid onboarding of hotels and instant value delivery.
- Capability to add selling disparate inventory types, including hotel rooms, meeting rooms, vacation rentals and package offerings – or any space for any duration.
“This new platform showcases our talent and the forward-thinking, fast-paced and collaborative nature at Choice Hotels, mirroring that of any leading technology incubator,” said Brian Kirkland, VP of engineering at Choice Hotels. “ChoiceEDGE strengthens our core capabilities, and positions us and our franchisees to capitalize on the growth our industry is experiencing while enabling the efficient future delivery of new initiatives.”
Choice has already onboarded multiple distributors onto the advanced platform. “The new global reservation system, choiceEDGE, is helping Choice Hotels and Sabre gain seamless distribution of the broad and rich content for our buyers,” said Traci Mercer, SVP, global lodging, ground and sea, Sabre Travel Network.