Hotel guest acquisition platform SiteMinder has launched the Hotel App Store, a marketplace said to allow hotels to better pick and connect applications to their business systems for greater guest experiences and revenue.
The product, which was unveiled at World Travel Market London, is a significant step forward for hotels that have been challenged with changing guest behaviour but have lacked access to technology that keeps them ahead of those trends, said the company in a statement.
Until now, marketplaces have been closed environments for hotels, accessible only by using a marketplace provider’s designated property management system (PMS).
SiteMinder’s Hotel App Store has opened up this access to all hotels, by allowing them to connect to more than 100 applications, including revenue management and upselling, guest messaging, guest review management, room controls, airport transfers and keyless entry, through a single interface and from a selection of more than 80 PMSs or SiteMinder’s channel manager.
SiteMinder’s Hotel App Store will feature in-built smart technology that recommends only relevant applications to hotel users, based on their profile and past selections, said the company in a statement.
Among the applications available through the Hotel App Store are Cendyn, TrustYou, OpenKey, Welcome Pickups, and Oaky, as well as UK-headquartered For-Sight and upgrade2.
“Over the years, we have witnessed numerous hotel technologies emerge to better support hoteliers with their day-to-day, yet never before have hoteliers had the opportunity to select freely from those choices, using the system they know and trust. Hoteliers remain anchored down by the challenges of data and accessibility. We solved the data challenge through SiteMinder Exchange and now, with the Hotel App Store, we’re making accessibility another issue of the past,” said Dai Williams, chief growth officer at SiteMinder.
The Hotel App Store comes 18 months after the launch of SiteMinder Exchange, a connectivity hub that allows hotel data publishers and developers of hotel application software to transfer guest information between their systems. From today, hotels using a data publisher connected to SiteMinder Exchange, which includes PMSs and SiteMinder’s channel manager, can use the Hotel App Store to access applications.
