Hotel commerce platform SiteMinder has added to its metasearch and hotel payments programs to give hotels more choice to manage and protect their revenue in unpredictable travel markets.
SiteMinder is adding trivago, a hotel price comparison website, to its metasearch program, Demand Plus. Through Demand Plus, hotels have their metasearch setup, billing, bidding and campaigns managed entirely by SiteMinder, and pay for completed stays booked directly through their own website from Google and, now, trivago.
In addition to growing Demand Plus, SiteMinder is introducing the ability for hotels to process guest payments from within its platform as part of the SiteMinder Pay program, which provides integrated payment solutions. Using the new capability, hotel subscribers now can more securely process payments and refunds for bookings made via online travel agencies by digitizing the process rather than processing credit cards manually.
The capability caters to the thousands of hotels that are yet to integrate their booking technology with their property-management system and record their guests’ credit card details in nonsecure, often paper-based locations. By allowing hotels to process guest payments within SiteMinder’s platform, they can process payments at the time of booking or quickly after the initial deposit to reduce credit card fraud, increase the security of how payments are managed and get cash in the bank sooner. In addition to offering a contactless payment option for guests, hotels can eliminate the risk of credit card declines or guest no-shows, forecast when future payments will arrive and make refunds with no fees for either the property or guest. Early adopters of SiteMinder Pay also report saving an average of 4.2 minutes in manual handling, per booking.
“Right now, hoteliers across the globe are faced with the dual challenge of fewer travelers and an increasingly complex plethora of digital marketing options. Most hotels don’t have the budgets and resources they need to leverage all the opportunities available to make themselves more visible and improve the management of their revenue,” said Dai Williams, chief growth officer at SiteMinder. “The growth of SiteMinder’s metasearch and payments programs is part of our commitment to supporting hotels with more choice, during this difficult time and as travel recovers.”