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Black Friday , along with other important dates such as Buen Fin , Cyber Monday , Travel Tuesday , etc., is one of the most important sales peaks for many sectors, and the hotel industry has been no exception for years. Aware that consumers expect significant discounts, hotels can also take advantage of the occasion to increase reservations and build customer loyalty through strategic offers coinciding with this date marked in stone on the calendar.

At Paraty Tech we have designed a comprehensive whitepaper where we offer an interactive checklist that addresses five key pillars: revenue management, digital marketing, metasearch engines, voice channel and communication. Below, we tell you why each of these aspects is key to success at this key moment of the season.

Want to learn all the strategies? Download the whitepaper and get access to all the content.

1. Revenue Management: Strategic adjustments in rates

Revenue management is the key to adjusting prices in a way that maximizes revenue without losing competitiveness. Taking advantage of Black Friday with strategic rate management can make all the difference and capture the attention of consumers looking for special offers.

2. Digital Marketing: Reach your customers on time

With competition rates skyrocketing during Black Friday, an effective digital marketing strategy is essential to stand out . From emails to social media, a well-executed and agile presence will allow you to connect with your audience at the right time, increasing the chances of conversion.

3. Metasearch engines: greater visibility and direct bookings

Metasearch engines have established themselves as a key channel for attracting bookings . Making the most of these channels during Black Friday will help you compete with OTAs and attract direct bookings, increasing the visibility of your rates and ensuring that customers choose your official website as their preferred channel for booking.

4. Voice Channel: enhance the value of human contact

Human contact remains essential, especially when customers are looking to resolve queries about special promotions. The voice channel offers an opportunity to build loyalty, secure additional sales and increase the average ticket , with personalized attention that can make the customer choose your hotel.

5. Communication: generates expectations and loyalty

An effective communication strategy can boost the results of any Black Friday campaign . From generating anticipation to measuring results, well-planned communication will help you reach and connect with your audience in an impactful and lasting way.

This Black Friday, make sure every aspect of your strategy is optimized to capture bookings and strengthen your relationship with your customers. With our interactive checklist, you will have the keys to a successful campaign .

Download our whitepaper now and discover how to maximize your hotel's potential this Black Friday . And if you have any questions, you can always rely on your account manager, who will be keeping a close eye on your product throughout the month.

The Colony Hotel, an iconic destination in the heart of South Beach, has selected Paraty Tech as its consulting and technology provider to enhance its direct business strategy. This collaboration represents a significant step forward for The Colony Hotel, renowned as a symbol of South Beach’s vibrant Art Deco District. As it seeks to improve operational efficiency and increase direct reservations through innovative technological solutions.

Established in 1935 and a landmark on prestigious Ocean Drive. The Colony Hotel offers its guests a unique blend of its Art Deco heritage with a modern touch. Making it a favorite among South Beach visitors. In its latest move to further elevate guest experiences, The Colony has chosen Paraty Tech to help streamline and optimize their booking processes. Paraty Tech’s cutting-edge tools are designed to help hotels maximize revenue while offering guests seamless, personalized experiences.

Speaking about the new partnership, Eddie Nunez, Director of Sales & Revenue at The Colony Hotel expressed his enthusiasm:
"Everyone we have worked with at Paraty Tech have been amazing and we are very happy we chose to partner with Paraty Tech. I use Price Seeker, their in-house rate shopper, daily and it has been very helpful, so even before going live with Paraty Tech there are benefits to the relationship".

At the core of Paraty Tech’s offering is its in-house developed booking engine, which seamlessly integrates with a hotel’s existing systems to create a streamlined, guest-friendly experience. All of Paraty Tech’s technology is developed internally, ensuring full control over innovation and customization. This allows hotels like The Colony to benefit from a tailored, efficient solution designed to drive direct bookings and improve guest satisfaction. The booking engine is designed to boost conversion rates while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to each hotel’s unique needs, making it a perfect fit for properties that prioritize direct bookings.

Furthermore, Paraty Tech’s solutions provide real-time insights into market conditions and competitor pricing, empowering hotels like The Colony to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition.

According to Rafe Marshall, Paraty Tech’s Business Development Manager for North America, “this technology not only enhances revenue management but also strengthens the hotel's direct sales channels”.

In addition to The Colony Hotel, The Kent Hotel and Suites On South Beach, both located in Miami’s iconic South Beach district, have also chosen Paraty Tech to power their direct booking platforms. These hotels, known for their distinct character and vibrant locations, join the growing list of establishments that are leveraging Paraty Tech's advanced solutions to drive more direct bookings and enhance guest experiences.

This partnership reflects Paraty Tech’s continued commitment to providing world-class technological solutions to hoteliers, empowering them to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving hospitality landscape.

On October 11th we had the pleasure of attending "Calvià, Revenue destination. The art of hotel distribution" , an event organized by Incubadora Revenue and in which we were also part of the program, as participants in the discussion panel "Trends in direct sales" . Moderated by Sergio Barroso, CEO at Del Pintor Suites&Hotels, and accompanied by Joan Sanz, director at Bookline, we were able to share our experience and vision on several crucial topics related primarily to the voice channel, for the optimization of the performance of hotels and hotel chains in terms of direct sales. Below is a summary of some of the reflections that we addressed and shared with the audience during our intervention:

Missed calls: an invisible cost for hotels

One of the most critical points we highlighted was the problem of missed calls. Hotels and hotel chains are often unaware of the volume of calls that are not answered and the cost this represents for their business. Every missed call is a lost sales opportunity, and without proper follow-up, these opportunities are diluted. We insist on the importance of implementing tools that allow hotels to not only record incoming calls, but also manage those that have not been answered. Technology can help reduce this "invisible cost" and maximize voice channel conversion.

Quality of service: lack of focus, absence of protocols

During our presentation, we also highlighted the problems related to the quality of telephone service. After carrying out numerous quality audits in different hotels, we have found multiple cases where protocols of any kind are not established or followed. This includes an alarming lack of focus on sales during customer service, wasted sales opportunities by not sending quotes and a general lack of standardization of procedures. This lack of uniformity and preparation has a direct impact on reservations and agent productivity, but also on customer perception. Therefore, we proposed the implementation of more rigorous training and the creation of clear standards to ensure that every interaction with customers is geared towards converting each call into a sale .

CRM integration: a pending issue with significant consequences

Another recurring issue we see is the lack of effective integration of CRM systems into phone support processes. Staff often don’t have access to key information, such as who is calling, which prevents a more personalized and warm approach from the start. In addition, customer information is not properly recorded in the CRM, which means that the opportunity to follow up later or link these leads to loyalty programs is lost. To address this, we recommend a more seamless integration between phone systems and CRMs , so that agents can quickly recognize customers who call and personalize their service based on their history.

AI and FAQs: Human Resources Optimization

The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) for the resolution of frequently asked questions was also a key topic of discussion. AI’s ability to handle common and simple queries allows agents to focus on higher-value tasks. For example, frequently asked questions can be handled by chatbots or automated response systems, which can sometimes be mistaken for humans, and when AI detects a clear purchase intent, the call is automatically transferred to a specialized Ring2Travel agent. This not only optimizes the use of human resources, but also ensures that agents are fresher and can better focus on higher-potential sales opportunities, improving service efficiency.

Digital Marketing Consulting: A Trend for 2025

Looking ahead, we highlight the growing importance of technology providers like us starting to offer comprehensive digital marketing consultancies as a key trend for 2025. It is no longer enough to focus exclusively on campaigns, for example, Google Ads, the strategy must be global. This involves integrating multiple channels and platforms to reach the customer at various points in their journey. We proposed the need for strategic consultancy that covers the entire digital ecosystem, from metasearch optimization to remarketing, through data analysis and the creation of relevant content.

Metasearch engines: implications of the change in Google's model

Finally, we address Google's recent change in model for advertising on metasearch engines , which has gone from a CPA (Cost per Acquisition) model to a CPC (Cost per Click) one . This change represents a challenge and an opportunity for hotels, as they must now adjust their strategy to ensure that each click actually generates a return on investment. For hotels that depend on reservations through metasearch engines, adapting to this new model is crucial to remain competitive in the market and at Paraty Tech we are leading this migration by offering the possibility for hotels to continue working as they have until now, without hardly noticing the transition process, transferring the greatest risk from the client to the provider.

In summary, our intervention made it clear that part of the future success of hotels and hotel chains in terms of direct sales will depend largely on their ability to "do their homework" and adapt to the market changes imposed by global players, as well as to optimize their performance through a combination of technology, service quality and integrated marketing strategies . These are the pillars on which we believe competitiveness in the hotel sector must be built for the immediate future.

Having a specialized call center represents a strategic advantage for hotels . This service not only guarantees more personal and efficient service, but also optimizes resource management, increases sales through techniques such as upselling, enables multi-channel operations, and provides key data for decision-making. It improves the hotel's competitiveness and elevates the guest experience .

To learn more, read the full article on the ITH blog.

Paraty Tech , a specialist in the development of advanced technology for the optimization of online and offline direct sales in hotels, and Descubre Group , a leading company in digital communication solutions for the hotel sector, have announced a strategic alliance.

This collaboration, in addition to marking an important milestone in the expansion into the American market , offers cutting-edge solutions and facilitates access to them at the most competitive rates, with the aim of improving the guest experience (before, during and after the stay) and optimizing hotel operations.

Enhancing the international hotel experience

With a successful track record in the international market, these solutions are already used by some of the most prestigious hotel chains, such as Meliá Hotels International and Barceló Hotel Group , who already trust Descubre Group to improve the guest experience through innovation in hotels around the world. Now, both companies are preparing to introduce these solutions in the dynamic Mexican market, where Paraty Tech has established itself as the booking engine that manages the most beds in the hotel zone of Cancún .

A complete customer experience, from start to finish

Guest experience is critical at every stage of a guest’s stay – from the moment they begin dreaming about traveling, through the moment they leave, through the moment they book, and into their stay. Understanding and optimizing this cycle not only improves guest satisfaction and their perception of the lodging experience, but also drives sales and loyalty.

Descubre Group and Paraty Tech join forces to spread and introduce their solutions in major tourist destinations, offering tools designed to maximize operational efficiency and enrich the customer experience at all stages of their stay: personalization and promotion prior to arrival, optimization of communication and management of services during the stay and, finally, post-stay monitoring and retention.

Tools for an excellent customer experience

Pre-stay – Paraty Tech

• Paraty Digital Suite, digital marketing agency : Full range of digital marketing services, including SEO, SEM, metasearch engine connectivity and campaign management, social media management, newsletter design and sending.


• Revenue management tools : Designed in-house, they help you always keep your own and your competitors' prices under control, so you are in a position to offer the best guaranteed online price to the guest.


• Web design and booking engine : With a clear focus on sales and user experience, both the website and the booking process are 100% custom, with the intention of offering a simple, intuitive and frictionless shopping experience.


• In-house Call Center : For many travelers, the best experience still begins with a friendly voice. The specialized agents at Ring2Travel, Paraty Tech's call center, are trained to identify themselves as hotel staff and represent the establishment with extreme fidelity.

During the stay – DiscoverGroup

• Channel 0 information and personalized digital signage : Improved communication with guests and effective promotion of additional services through Channel 0 and screens in common areas.


• Service Directory : A Webapp directory that complements the corporate channel. It is a solution that informs and allows guests to interact from their mobile device, accessing activities, shows, incident reports, restaurant reservations, tours and much more.


• Digital Menus : Menu in Webapp format that allows you to manage dishes according to availability in real time and with an allergen filter, all of this under the brand and corporate image standards.


• Content manager : Intuitive management tool to update the content of all our platforms easily and in real time, informing the guest throughout their stay.


• Touch screen information kiosk : Ideal totem for common areas with direct access to relevant information and promotions, among others.

Post-stay – Paraty Tech

• Satisfaction Questionnaires : Listening to guests is crucial to improving and being able to make them feel heard and increase the likelihood that they will return in the future.


• Loyalty Programs : Up to 5 different types of Loyalty Program (with or without levels, accumulation of points and/or nights, wallet, etc.)

Benefits for Mexican hotels

Thanks to this alliance, hotels will have access to a suite of integrated solutions that not only optimize processes, but also elevate the guest experience to a new level. From service automation to real-time incident management, our technologies are designed to help hotels stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

Iván Rodríguez, CEO of Descubre Group, commented: “We are very excited to collaborate with Paraty Tech to offer solutions that enhance the guest experience. This partnership is a key step in our mission to bring innovation and cutting-edge technology to hotels around the world.”

For his part, Daniel Romero, Director of Communications and Strategic Alliances at Paraty Tech, added: “We are extremely pleased to join our path with that of Descubre Group, with whom we share not only the sector and typical client, but also the desire to achieve excellence in our respective areas of specialization and to turn hotels into their main beneficiaries.”
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About Discover Group

Discover Group is a company specialized in providing digital communication solutions for the hotel sector, with a focus on improving the guest experience and optimizing operational processes and with a strong presence in the market and with +450 hotels worldwide that use our solutions.

About Paraty Tech

Paraty Tech is a technology company that has been helping hotels and hotel chains boost their direct sales for over 12 years. With headquarters in Malaga, offices in Albufeira and Cancun, and sales offices in Colombia and the USA, it works with over 3,000 hotels around the world, with technology and customer service as its main hallmarks.

The data speaks for itself: up to 65% of quotes end in a booking.

Discover the effectiveness of Call Seeker, our quote and booking tool, in this Use Case where you can see not only why it is our most successful recent release, but also how all its features contribute to optimizing the operational efficiency of your team.
Find out now how to boost and professionalize your voice channel. Access the full Use Case here.

Oasis Hotels & Resorts, a leading hotel chain within the Mexican territory, has 9 establishments distributed between Cancun and Tulum, with a total of more than 2,500 beds in the Mexican Caribbean. Seven of these accommodations are categorized within what is traditionally known as All Inclusive Resorts, while the remaining two are urban hotels.

Download the Success Story here.

Having just completed one year since the beginning of this collaboration, we only have words of gratitude for this client who, although he has significantly raised the level of demands, has been fully involved with the project from the first moment, making a TEAM with us.

Oasis Hotels & Resorts has pushed us to strive like never before, but it has also made us better, it has helped us grow, to evolve. In every sense. We always say that work well done pays off and, to a large extent, thanks to them, we have established ourselves in the destination as the booking engine that manages the most beds in the Cancun hotel zone.

Challenges and objectives

If there is a client who gives the voice channel the importance that we know it deserves, without a doubt, it is this one. In fact, the main problem that Oasis Hotels & Resorts had when it came to us was not so much sales volume, but rather an imbalance between direct channels, and the consequences derived from it, such as lack of control, or the absence of unity, in the tariff structure.

At Paraty Tech we are very clear that the telephone is a central pillar of the hotel direct sales strategy, and that, in some cases, it can represent more than 25% of total reservations. But this case was different. Here, 70% of direct bookings came from the voice channel, and only the remaining 30% came through the official website's booking engine. A situation to which was added the difference in prices between both channels, and due to the opaque nature of the voice channel, it is easy to lose control. In our opinion, it was a question of integration of channels, of technologies, in short.

“The objective was not to lose sales in the voice channel, but to balance the balance with online sales, which were much lower.” Fernando Pereira, Chief Digital Officer Oasis Hotels & Resorts.

Therefore, here the fundamental objective was none other than to equalize the balance, that is, to reduce the difference in share between direct channels. The easy thing? Increase web reservations. The real challenge? Achieve it without telephone reservations being penalized.

From 70-30 to 55-45

Oasis Hotels & Resorts opted for our technology with all the consequences and we are very grateful for the vote of confidence. Thus, currently we provide you with:

• Booking engine


• Paraty Digital Suite (SEM management and social networks)


• Paraty Metas (metasearch management)


• Paraty Loyalty (loyalty program)


• Price Seeker (rate shopper)


• Call Seeker (voice channel management)


• Business Intelligence

Such a migration obviously requires a certain period of adaptation. In this case, it could be said that the most intense phase of the implementation process lasted around three or four months (from June to September 2023), during which there was no significant data to report, but also nothing in particular to regret. And as they say, no news, good news.

However, starting in October, the first results appeared. And while the call center remained stable compared to the previous year (very good news), the direct online channel registered a timid, but hopeful, increase in reservations of 14.8%, which ended up consolidating itself as a trend of sustained growth over the last year. over the following months:

• November 2023 / +64.7% vs 2022


• December 2023 / +40.7% vs. 2022


• January 2024 / +45.6% vs. 2023

In the words of Fernando Pereira, CDO of the company, “the great news is that the channels are being equalized. We have gone from 70% Voice - 30% Web, to 55% Voice - 45% Web . The call center is growing at a slower pace, but the initial objective was to maintain itself, while the website grew, because through the voice channel, control over prices was lost, as it is an opaque channel.

Call Seeker, improvised protagonist

Call Seeker is already one of our most successful releases. This tool, designed to facilitate hotels' transition to professional telephone service, and integrated with the booking engine, payment gateway, loyalty programs and CRM, allows them, among many other things, to make quotes and send pre-booking links. The data speaks for itself: up to 65% of all quotes end up becoming a reservation.

With Oasis Hotels & Resorts, its usefulness has been demonstrated for the umpteenth time and, as Fernando tells us, it has played a decisive role in this success story: “The implementation of Call Seeker has had a lot to do with control over the voice, by matching prices 100% with what was offered through the website. Thanks to Call Seeker we have been able to undertake a unified rate loading, integrated with our loyalty programs, and, ultimately, regain control over the entire direct channel, online and offline.”

General conclusions

Moving forward hand in hand with clients like Oasis Hotels & Resorts pushes us to make our solutions more effective tools, because from each particular request satisfied, all our clients end up benefiting. We find reliable proof of our ability to adapt in the fact that, from this project alone and in less than a year, the following innovations have been developed:

• Refactoring of Loyalty Programs, which are now more flexible and scalable


• Integration with Xerpa, which will allow us to insert a Social Login in any solution


• Sale of independent services, such as the Day Pass


• Call Seeker optimization, with new features such as multi-quoting


• Integration of the Stripe payment gateway with the implementation of a multitude of detailed business rules

But the most important thing for us is customer satisfaction, compliance with the set objectives and always maintaining our customer service and support at the highest level. Only by having these three premises constantly present, are we able to generate results and feedback as positive as the one we present below:

• Booking engine: We have grown a lot without harming the voice channel at all.


• Call Center: It is growing somewhat slower, but the objective in this first phase was to maintain itself, and we have achieved it.


• Digital Marketing: In general, it is working very well, but we especially highlight the brutal increase in conversion through social networks, where the ROI has multiplied by ten.


• Call Seeker: It has played a determining role in the unification of rates and control of the direct channel, both online and offline.


• Business Intelligence: We are very happy with the analytical tools and the creation of custom dashboards.


• Payment gateway and Paraty E-Payments: We highly value being able to have all payments unified on one platform, Paraty E-Payments, as well as the ease of integrating all the super detailed business rules (seasonal, partial payments, etc.), created through our system, which have avoided problems, such as Stripe not charging again if the customer rejects the payment. In this sense, we would like to highlight the great work of the Paraty Tech technical team.


• Customer service: Fluidity, flexibility, great technical support, direct contact... We have had as many meetings as required and maintained regular weekly calls every Wednesday to improve processes. The willingness and commitment have been full, and the feeling we have, due to their agility in response, is that the Paraty staff is now part of our team.

Download the Success Story here.

Although it seems like it was yesterday when we started hearing about NFTs , the truth is that their origin dates back to 2017. Seven years later, many still do not understand this concept, its possible areas of application and, above all, its usefulness. . That is why the pioneering platform developed by TripResale is especially interesting, and the implications of its recent integration with the Paraty Tech reservation engine, a company firmly determined not to get off the innovation train, and one of the first hotel reservation engines in the world. market in betting on this technology.

This solution represents the birth of what they have called the Non-Refundable Resellable Rate , destined to become a natural substitute for the traditional non-refundable rate, which will allow guests, if they are forced to cancel their trip, to resell their reservation through from the TripResale marketplace. A formula with which, according to Eduardo Martínez , CEO of the company, "everyone wins, because the hotel avoids dealing with the discomfort of a guest who requests a refund that does not correspond to him, the guest books with greater peace of mind when a door opens to a hypothetical refund through resale, and the direct channel, with a very advantageous rate, creates a form of positive disparity compared to other channels, which a priori should contribute to the increase in conversion.

Furthermore, one of the main achievements is that this entire process has been simplified to the maximum, to the point of not interfering at all with the reservation process and not requiring even the slightest knowledge of the technology on which it is based on the part of the user or the hotelier, who will receive notifications every time a user purchases a resellable rate and also every time they put it up for sale.

Daniel Sánchez , CRO of Paraty Tech, a leading company in the development of technological solutions aimed at promoting the direct sale of hotels, chains, glamping and other tourist accommodations, is sure to place high hopes in this strategic collaboration, with which he hopes to “increase the ratio conversion of the booking engine, but also revolutionize the usual hotel rate structure, with this new model that changes the rules of the game that until now have been applied to non-refundable hotel rates.”

The new partnership promises to transform the way travelers manage their reservations today, offering flexibility and peace of mind in the event of any unforeseen event prior to travel, and, therefore, also the role that non-refundable rates have played to date. Along these lines concludes Gina Matheis , CEO of Paraty Tech, who is “excited about this alliance with TripResale, which marks a significant milestone in our mission to offer innovative and customer-oriented solutions, and also represents a step forward in adaptation of technology to the changing needs of the market and the traveler.

As you already know, since December 1, 2023, all companies with more than 50 employees are required to have a visible complaints channel on their website , as stated in the BOE, in Law 2/2023 . This measure, aimed at promoting transparency and integrity in the work environment, requires that all companies implement a system that allows their employees and third parties to anonymously and confidentially report any illegal act or act contrary to the organization's code of conduct.

In this context, at Paraty Tech we have gotten to work to help you comply with this new regulation. And the implementation of a complaints channel, in addition to being a legal requirement, constitutes a fundamental resource to promote a safe and ethical work environment.

The importance of the Complaints Channel on your hotel website

The complaints channel must be visible and accessible at all times and from any section, both for the company's employees and for external people who are related to it and who have knowledge or suspicions of regulatory non-compliance. The purpose of this channel is to provide a safe and confidential means so that inappropriate practices can be reported without fear of retaliation.

The complaints or claims that are presented will be processed with the objective of promoting the investigation, verifying the authenticity of the information provided and urging the correct resolution of active files, including, where appropriate, the appropriate sanctions.

Catch up with Paraty Tech

On the hotel's official website, the user will find the “Complaints Channel” section, through which they can report events such as those already mentioned. The complainant may fill in their personal data, always confidential , or present the facts anonymously. After completing the information, a tracking code and password will be generated automatically that will allow the user to check the status of the file. For your part, you, as a hotelier, will also have your own private area to manage these matters.

Complying with this regulation not only avoids potential penalties, but also demonstrates a commitment to business integrity and responsibility. For this reason, we remind you of the obligation to include this section on your official website, we urge you to implement it as quickly as possible, and we are at your disposal to facilitate this task. If you are interested, please contact your assigned account.

Earlier this year, Paraty Tech announced the launch of its booking engine for campsites and glampings, a tourism modality that has significantly accelerated its digitalization process over the past five years. Now, it takes a giant leap in its intention to become a technological reference for this vacation modality by joining forces with Revbell, the multi-sector revenue management system (RMS) that has been adapting its platform for years to meet the unique needs of this and other sectors, specializing to the point of positioning itself as the leading solution in its segment.

Indeed, more and more tech companies are focusing on these business models that have transitioned from selling only plots to marketing a wide variety of accommodations, including bungalows, pre-pitched tents, bubble rooms, static caravans, etc., and that are gradually behaving, at all levels, like horizontal hotels.

This alliance, which aims to boost direct sales of campsites and glampings, improve their technological ecosystem, and enhance the purchasing experience for guests, ultimately aims to increase the profitability of these tourist accommodations. It will allow both companies to bundle their respective solutions to offer a comprehensive solution at a very competitive cost.

Moreover, the combination of Paraty Tech's advanced technology, optimized over more than a decade, and Revbell's know-how and experience in revenue management will enable campsites and glampings to reduce their dependence on intermediaries, fine-tune their pricing strategy through dynamic rate management, and maximize their revenues.

In the words of Daniel Sánchez, Chief Revenue Officer of Paraty Tech, "it is fantastic to see how other companies strive to adapt their tools to the demands of this emerging sector and are willing to ally with companies like ours to offer a seamless and personalized purchasing experience, from the first contact to the final booking, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty".

Similarly, Idoia Herrero, Sales Manager and Partnerships at Revbell, is convinced that "the integration of our solutions with those of Paraty Tech will allow our mutual clients a centralized and on demand automatic rate management, ensuring price consistency across all channels, and providing a convenient and intuitive booking process, enriched by the countless functionalities, features and optimizations that have benefited thousands of hotel establishments over more than a decade".

With this agreement, both companies reaffirm their strong commitment to leading the digital transformation in the tourism sector, providing solutions that drive operational efficiency, increase profitability, and enhance customer satisfaction.

First consequences of their gatekeeper status and the application of the DMA.

Booking.com has announced that as of July 1, it will remove parity clauses from its contracts that allow properties to offer different rates on their own channels and on the Booking.com platform. This new measure is an update to its contracts with its partners in the European Economic Area in response to the new regulations of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

With this update, Booking.com's partners will no longer be required to maintain the same rates on both the platform and direct channels. While the company believes that rate parity offers significant benefits to consumers by providing easy and secure access to a variety of options in one place, it has decided to comply with the requirements of the DMA.

After the European Commission (EC) appointed Booking.com as a gatekeeper, forcing it to adjust its business practices. In a statement, the company said: "While we believe that parity provides consistent price benefits for consumers by giving them easy and secure access to a variety of options on the same site, we will comply with our obligations under the DMA. We will continue to invest in products and services that create value for our customers and help them travel and experience the world".

In addition to the changes in the European Economic Area, Booking.com has begun to implement certain specific commitments in Spain in response to the draft decision of the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC). The company has demonstrated its commitment and intention to act ethically while awaiting the CNMC's final decision, at which time it will evaluate its future steps.

The Digital Markets Act is a European Union regulation aimed at overseeing the operations of major digital platforms and promoting a fair and competitive market environment. The removal of the parity clauses marks a significant milestone in the dynamic between Booking.com and its hotel industry partners. The company's next steps will be closely watched by both regulators and the hotel industry.

The European Commission can impose fines of up to 10% of a company's global turnover for failure to comply with its gatekeeper obligations, rising to 20% for repeat offenders. However, in the case of systematic infringements, the Commission has the power to take additional measures, such as forcing the company to sell parts of its business or prohibiting it from acquiring services related to the cause of the infringement.

A respite for hoteliers

The reform of this clause has brought a ray of hope to hoteliers who have been expressing their dissatisfaction with Booking.com's demands for years. In particular, the Spanish Association of Hotel Managers and the Madrid Hotel Association denounced Booking.com for abusive practices, and several hotel managers accused the platform of imposing price parity.

Following these accusations, the CNMC warned that it would impose a fine of 486 million euros on Booking.com for restricting the prices of Spanish hotels. This amount will not be finalized until July, but it is already the highest in the company's history.

To try to alleviate these problems, the Global Reformbnb was created in Barcelona in 2023, an initiative that has already been operating since 2018 in New York, Paris and Tokyo, with the aim of addressing the growth of tourist rentals and the expansion of Airbnb. It is now also defending the interests of hoteliers against major players such as Booking.com and Expedia.

How does the hotel benefit from this new regulation?

Positive differences

New regulations in the area of rate parity offer a number of opportunities for hoteliers looking to optimize their direct channel sales. With the disappearance of restrictions imposed by the popular OTA, hotels can now work harder and better to generate positive rate differentials on their official website.

Discounts and Best Online Price Guarantee without fear

Until now, hoteliers have been reluctant to offer exclusive promotions or very obvious special discounts on their websites for fear of possible retaliation from the OTA, often resorting to promocodes or even hidden offers, if at all. Now, however, they will be able to implement these practices openly and without restrictions, benefiting both their own properties and their guests by fearlessly displaying classic claims such as the famous "Best Price Guarantee".

Improved competitiveness in metasearch engines

In addition, the ability to offer the best rate on the Web will significantly improve a hotel's competitiveness in metasearch engines. This new freedom allows hotels to highlight their most attractive rates and drive more customers to direct booking channels.

Although the implementation of DMA has affected both visibility on metasearch engines and the number of bookings through Google Hotel Ads, now, with the end of Booking's parity clause, hotels will be able to offer their rates more flexibly compared to OTAs..

For example, the new structure makes it possible to offer the reservation at a loyalty price versus the standard cost of the room in an online agency. This is an approach that Paraty Tech has been promoting for a long time, and which is now reinforced by not being subject to guidelines that limit pricing strategies.

More loyalty opportunities

In terms of loyalty, the possibilities have expanded considerably. Many hoteliers tended to offer benefits that were not strictly linked to price, due to the rigid clauses of Booking.com. Now, they will be able to easily create discount programs in their loyalty clubs, implementing levels with economic incentives to encourage repeat business and customer satisfaction.

Offsets: impact on the billboard effect

It is important to note that although the OTA will no longer contractually require price parity, they are likely to apply penalties that will affect the positioning of hotels on their platform: "This will not only affect direct sales through the platform, but also the billboard effect they generate for the hotel's direct channels", explains Daniel Sanchez, Chief Revenue Officer of Paraty Tech. With the intention of further boosting direct sales and conducting a more exhaustive analysis of the market, "using tools such as Price Seeker, our rate shopper, allows hoteliers to monitor the positioning of their establishments in different OTAs, both by comparison and by destination, in order to properly control this variable", adds the CRO.

Next Thursday, June 13th, the Hotel El Fuerte in Marbella will host Hoteltrends Andalucía, an exclusive event for hoteliers, organized by Hotelverse and Paraty Tech, in collaboration with Fideltour, Flexmyroom, and IDeaS.

The event will offer a series of activities designed to provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the innovations and challenges facing the hotel industry today and also promises to be an essential platform to explore the latest trends in hotel distribution and technology.

The day will begin with the round table "Online and offline direct channels: challenges and tools", focused on analyzing the challenges facing direct sales and the resources available today to overcome them. Industry experts will discuss the strategies needed to optimize these and other hotel distribution channels.

Afterwards, attendees will enjoy a coffee break, an opportunity to network, make contacts and forge valuable collaborations and synergies.

Also, one of the highlights of the program is the presentation of the "Business Case Amare by Hotelverse & Paraty Tech". This case study illustrates how the synergies between these two eminently technological companies have led to the successful implementation of innovative solutions, such as the immersive booking process through the use of the digital twin, significantly improving the customer experience and operating results.

The day will conclude with a second round table that, under the title "The future of hotel distribution", will bring together various expert voices in this field to constructively discuss emerging trends and forecasts for the evolution of the sector in the coming years.

From Paraty Tech, we are very proud to be part of an event like this again, crucial for the industry, which has been able to bring together such diverse hotel profiles as Juan José Gallego from Soho Boutique Hotels, Iciar Gatell from Holiday World, Mano Soler from Les Roches, Guillermo Laguna from Marbella Club, Tamara Amore from ONA Hotels, Iván Corzo from Alanda Hotel and Pablo Torres, who repeats the experience as a luxury moderator.

Our commitment to innovation and excellence in the field of hotel technology drives us to periodically launch initiatives of this nature, for which we usually rely on our unconditional partners and the opinion of industry leaders to provide solutions that respond to the real needs of hoteliers.

"Hoteltrends Andalucía" stands as an unmissable event for those interested in staying at the forefront of trends in hotel distribution and technology, and who until the day of the event will be able to get their place for this meeting.

We eagerly await the attendance of all attendees and are confident that the debates and presentations that will take place will contribute significantly to the development and optimization of the hospitality industry.

Did you know that in certain hotel establishments, problems with the payment gateway are responsible for up to 40% of bookings being abandoned in the last step of the process? Fortunately, not all hotels suffer to the same extent the impact of blockages that arise at the very moment of the transaction, but you should always keep in mind that each market has its preferred payment methodology and your website must be prepared to meet that of each traveler profile you receive.

In a sector as competitive as the hotel industry, every aspect of the future guest's experience plays a decisive role in their decision making. From the first impression made by any of your channels, when they are still immersed in preliminary searches and queries, to the last step of the purchasing process, when they are already determined to stay at your hotel, without forgetting the post-stay relationship.

Considering how expensive it is in every way to get a user this far, don't you think it would be a shame to throw it all away because of inconveniences related to international payments, online payment blockages, not supporting a certain payment method or the existence of a pre-set limit on the credit or debit card set by the bank?

Even if the "fault" is not yours, there is a high probability that the reservation will be lost forever. This is why it is essential that you have the means to keep the customer a little longer, to give him a second chance to finish what he started, and to prevent him from changing his mind and choosing another channel to the detriment of the direct one.

Payment methods can also help you generate positive differentials with other channels and, in general, taking care of and optimizing every aspect related to this area will not only take trust, security perception and guest experience to another level, favoring their loyalty, but will also contribute to boosting direct sales and have a direct impact on your bottom line.

What makes a user leave your site?

This is a question you probably ask yourself often. The truth is that there are many reasons, and knowing them is crucial to gradually reducing them:

• A common cause is that the user has only logged in for a quick query (find the phone number, find out if the pool is open, gossip photos, etc.).


• Lack of availability (no desired occupancy, no rates, stay restrictions, etc.) is another common reason. Redirects of all kinds are very effective in avoiding this and approaching the concept of non-availability equal to zero.


• Another common reason is the need to compare prices with other channels (OTAs, metasearch engines, etc.). Having a price comparator as part of the process, such as Rate Check, minimizes abandonment.


• Similarly, a site that is not well structured in terms of content and information architecture, that does not have a well-designed browsing experience, or that does not convey security, will also cause the user to bounce.


• Finally, the cause that concerns us the most, and perhaps the most serious because of the moment in which it occurs: problems at the time of payment.

Well aware of this scenario, at Paraty Tech we strive to offer innovative solutions to reduce leakage points and minimize their impact, with two fundamental objectives: to improve the conversion rate and build customer loyalty.

Latest: Payment error popup

However, this may not be enough, and with one of our recent launches, we added a new variable to the formula: the payment error popup. What does it consist of? Basically, it consists of offering the user different alternatives to try to prevent a payment error from becoming a dead end.

How does it work?

Sometimes simplicity is the key to the effectiveness of certain solutions. This is undoubtedly the case of the new functionality that concerns us, and it is that with two simple popups, 100% configurable from our Paraty Boosters tool, the number of reservations lost in the last step of the process is drastically reduced. How does it work? We will explain it to you below:

• The user reaches the final step, enters the payment information, and clicks the button to pay and complete the reservation.


• For one of the reasons listed above, the payment fails. Instead of the typical standard gateway message informing him that an error has occurred and encouraging him to contact his bank if the problem persists, the first popup appears, offering him two options:
  
  • Try again using the same payment method
  
  
  • Try a different payment method
  
  
• If the error is repeated, the same pop-up will appear again. This will continue until you have tried more than three times. At that point, the second warning pop-up will appear, informing the user that it is no longer possible to continue trying. Otherwise, the user is informed that he/she will receive a pre-booking email with a direct link to continue the process later.


• The offer sent by email will be valid for 24 hours and will include all the reservation details, an assigned pre-locator and a link for the user to complete the reservation at any time. In this way, we eliminate the possibility of the client resorting to other ways to make a reservation. In addition, it should be noted that all the reservations sent are accessible through the manager, in case you want to follow up on them or the ones you are most interested in.

Conclusions: Collection security is critical

Ensuring collections is critical. Ensuring that the payment process does not become a pain point is critical. Payment methods are not a trivial matter. Each market and segment has its own preferences, and your official website's booking engine must be up to the task.

As a hotelier, you should of course know these preferences, but also be more proactive in hiring and implementing more payment methods, and not be satisfied with the gateway provided by your bank, without exploring other more modern options with a more international vocation, such as Stripe, Paynopain, Ayden, etc.

In Paraty Tech we have in-house developments that facilitate this work, and partners that allow us to go where we cannot go by ourselves... Currently, we are integrated with more than 50 payment platforms, with which we are already working to cover this area as much as possible:

• Pay directly at the hotel


• Credit/Debit Card


• Bank Transfer


• POS & Payment Gateway


• Over 50 payment platforms


• Bizum


• Installment Payments


• Paraty e-payments

As always, if you are interested in activating this new functionality, simply contact your account. In the meantime, we will do our best to continue to innovate and improve our systems to provide the best possible experience for our customers and help our hotel partners succeed in an increasingly competitive market. In fact, although we do not yet have an official launch date, we would like to take this opportunity to inform you that our Business Intelligence will soon reflect bounces in the payment gateway, including the reasons why they occurred.

Paraty Tech, a leading partner specialized in empowering sales through direct channels for hotels and hotel chains, announces its recent partnerships in the United States. These strategic alliances mark a significant milestone in the company's expansion plan in the U.S. market.

Firstly, Paraty Tech has joined the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) as an Allied Tech Member. This collaboration with AHLA underscores Paraty Tech's commitment to the hospitality industry and its dedication to providing tailored solutions to hoteliers.

Secondly, Paraty Tech has become a member of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). By joining HSMAI, Paraty Tech gains access to a network of industry professionals and resources, further strengthening its position in the U.S. market.

These partnerships come at a time when Paraty Tech is already making significant strides in the U.S. market. After just one quarter in the region, Paraty Tech has secured its first contracts, demonstrating that its customized approach to enhancing sales through direct channels, with a focus on reducing intermediary costs and increasing revenue, is resonating well in the United States.

In addition to providing tailored solutions for direct channel sales optimization, Paraty Tech is committed to sharing valuable content with hoteliers in the areas of revenue management and digital marketing, trying to leverage both associations' communication channels to disseminate insightful articles, white papers and business cases to empower hoteliers and enhance their competitiveness in the market.

Commenting on the company's expansion into the U.S. market, Gina Matheis, CEO of Paraty Tech, expressed the challenges associated with entering new markets, but also conveyed her optimism and confidence in the company's success. "Expanding into new markets always presents challenges, but we are optimistic about our prospects in the United States. We draw confidence from the successful cases of international expansion we have achieved thus far. We believe that our proven track record and commitment to excellence will pave the way for success in the U.S. market."

Both partnerships and early contracts are integral parts of Paraty Tech's strategic growth initiative. By aligning with reputable associations, delivering tangible results, and providing valuable educational content, Paraty Tech aims to deepen its engagement within the hotel sector and further solidify its presence in America.

"We are thrilled to establish these alliances with AHLA and HSMAI", said Daniel Romero, Director of Communications and Strategic Partnerships at Paraty Tech. "These collaborations reflect our ongoing commitment to serving the needs of the hospitality industry and our dedication to driving innovation in direct channel sales optimization. Our early success in securing contracts demonstrates the effectiveness of our tailored approach, and we are excited to continue delivering value to hoteliers across the United States."

The good weather is accompanied by the desire to get away from the noise of the cars, the hustle and bustle and the routine. Running away to nature for a few days has become one of the main desires of this era in which being adventurous or not is no longer the question. Allegedly competitive prices (which, as we shall see, are not so competitive nowadays) and the modernisation of services have meant that the idea of loading up the car and escaping with the aim of getting in direct contact with the environment, whether on the beach, in the countryside or in the mountains, is increasingly on the traveller's mind.

The camping sector has become the big winner in tourism in recent times, changing the habits of many travellers, who have decided to change the large tourist buildings for these new "horizontal hotels". These cosy independent lodgings, often built of tarpaulins and poles, are in vogue, and the data corroborate this.

The irruption of glamping, a determining factor

The positive evolution of this sector in recent years is not only reflected in the growth in numbers, but also in the birth and proliferation of new accommodation specialities. The idea of calling the campsite to check the availability of pitches, preparing the car and keeping your fingers crossed during the whole trip, hoping that when you arrive there will not be no more pitches available, is still a reality among campers. This uncertainty, which is not suitable for everyone, has pushed this type of accommodation to reinvent itself until it has come up with the concept of "glamping", an increasingly widespread term that has managed to merge concepts that are, a priori, very distant from each other, such as glamour and camping.

Dating from around 2020, glamping has brought the comforts traditionally associated with hotels to the prime locations of campsites. In addition, the variety of accommodation formats is also constantly evolving and now includes bungalows, tents of various categories, cabins, container flats, static caravans, designer bubbles, etc. All these changes can be extended to the new target groups that are seduced by this new range of options. While families and retired people used to be more popular, it is becoming increasingly common for couples and young people to opt for this alternative getaway.

Another way of selling, another user experience, through technology

Most campsites have adapted their facilities and products to the different traveller profiles, but in terms of technology, digitalisation, user experience and revenue management, in many cases, change is slower, despite the fact that their operations, and even their guests, are now more similar to those of a hotel than to the traditional concept of a campsite.

Although, their usual way of managing bookings, seen from the outside, could be described as rudimentary, the fact is that their share of direct sales is usually very high, above 60%, largely due to their reduced distribution network. In fact, most of these accommodations have been channelling their entire flow of guests by means of requests (without immediate confirmation) through their website and voice channel.

But then, what can the technology and know-how of more specialised hotel suppliers bring to the table? In our opinion, a lot. All the changes we have been discussing so far are accompanied by an increase in the level of demand from guests, and these new expectations must be met at every stage of the guest experience, starting with the booking process.

In other words, the new breed of visitor is willing to pay more, but they no longer simply carry their rucksacks on their backs and pray for an unoccupied pitch. They now value, even demand, a perfectly tarmac pavement on which to slide the four wheels of their state-of-the-art suitcases, trade in their sleeping bags for pristine sheets on double beds, and forgo cold bathrooms and shared facilities in favour of cosy toilets and small private spaces shared only with their companions.

Of course, not all technology companies have the capacity (or the interest) to undertake the necessary changes to adapt their products to the needs of campsites and glampings. But for those who are willing to allocate resources to these tasks, it may be encouraging to know that Spain has around 1,190 accommodation units of this kind, most of them managed by their owners or by individual managers.

South America has also joined the glamping success story. At the beginning of last year, 202 active glampings were counted in the National Tourism Registry (RNT) in Colombia, most of them located mainly in Antioquia, Caldas and Quindío. Mexico has not been left behind. In 2023, the Mexican Association of Glampings (AMG) counted more than 130 such accommodations throughout the country, especially in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Jalisco.

Paraty Campings in response

Although in terms of increasing direct bookings as such it is not as easy to obtain such powerful results as in other types of establishment, technology can favour a change in the way of doing revenue, fostering loyalty, favouring a more controlled booking pace, increasing the average ticket, optimising the purchasing process, professionalising telephone customer service, improving online reputation or controlling the pricing strategy, both of competitors and their distribution channels which, with the new accommodation modalities, are gaining some prominence.

We have taken the leap with the launch of Paraty Campings , which merges the best of the booking engine for hotels and chains, with functionalities and modules specifically developed for this sector. For example, the possibility of applying a base price by capacity, which is taken as a reference for the type of accommodation selected, being able to add everything else as an extra or additional service, or an advanced filtering system by levels, which allows the user to choose between the different types of accommodation available (plots, bungalows, glamping, etc.), as well as to make the best possible selection. And this is just the tip of the iceberg...

The first consequences of the entry into force of the regulatory framework known as DMA (Digital Markets Act) , proposed by the European Union, with the aim of limiting the power of large technology platforms, and which led to the designation of the so-called Gatekeepers (Alphabet , Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft), are already beginning to become evident.

And Google has surprised us again with the announcement of the discontinuation in the Google Hotel Ads metasearch engine of the Stay Commission and Conversion Commission bidding strategies, which must now be converted into Objective ROAS (or Improved CPC) campaigns and/or o Maximum Performance Campaigns for Travel Objectives.

This measure comes at a time when, according to data provided by the World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO ), more than 88% of international tourism had recovered prior to the Pandemic, and in which Google Hotel Ads stands as the most used metasearch engine , being used by around 75% of travelers, according to the specialized sector media Hosteltur.

A before and after that affects hotels

Google assures that this measure responds to the changes that the sector will experience this year, as a consequence of the aforementioned DMA, such as the disappearance of third-party cookies . But what does it mean for the hotel sector?

Two of the main bidding models that hotels have been using until now are:

• Commission per Stay: in the Commission per Stay model, the hotel paid the agreed commission only if the reservation was made effective, that is, no commission was paid if the reservation was canceled.


• Commission per Conversion: on the contrary, in the Commission per Conversion model, the hotel paid the commission when the reservation became effective, regardless of whether it was subsequently canceled.

The point is that both bidding models require the famous third-party cookies and travelers' information (a circumstance that clashes head-on with the guidelines on data protection and privacy) to determine, for example, when they have stayed at a hotel a specific client and thus be able to correctly measure commissions. Hence its deletion and the imposition of this very delicate change, which requires exhaustive monitoring of the performance of the campaigns after their migration.

As always, there are already deadlines to complete each of the phases involved in this process:

• February 20, 2025: The current commission model will remain in use for new hotels until February 20, after which date it will no longer be available for new campaigns.


• November 30, 2025: Stay commission reconciliation will be offered for 9 months after deactivation, until November 30, 2025. If advertisers do not reconcile, they will be charged for all conversions they received during the period billing.

So how are you going to proceed?

The model that will replace the current model will be CPC with ROAS objective and Maximum Performance campaigns for travel objectives will also continue to gain ground. Likewise, these will coexist with the traditional CPC (Cost per Click) model which, among other things, is useful to achieve visibility in search results on Google Maps.

Therefore, the most sensible thing to do to adapt to this new situation without generating too much friction is to try the CPC model. Always keeping an eye on October 31 , the date on which the bidding model will have to have been changed in all campaigns to ensure that they continue to function normally after discontinuation.

Although it may be a discouraging panorama, at the same time it represents an opportunity for hotels to refine their advertising strategy and gradually adapt to the evolution of the rules of the game of the new electronic commerce. Proactivity will be essential to prosper in the hospitality industry , since it is a tremendously competitive sector.

What are we doing at Paraty Tech?

As always, we try to anticipate these types of situations to minimize their impact and avoid greater evils. Therefore, for now, the steps we are already taking to promote a successful migration from CPA to CPC in Google Hotel Ads are:

1. Evaluate performance: Analyzing the most important metrics to understand how the campaign is performing.


2. Set objectives: by controlling the CPC, we establish performance objectives, depending on whether we are looking for more visibility, profitability or both.


3. Test: Testing with the CPC bidding model before full migration.


4. Optimize the bidding strategy: once the migration to CPC is complete, adjust the bidding strategy to achieve the desired objective.


5. Constantly measure and optimize: comparing key metrics with the previous CPA model to evaluate the success of the migration.

With these steps and a data-centric approach, we will help our clients in an effective migration from CPA model to CPC model in GHA. In any case, as always, if you need more information on how to get the most out of your investment in CPC for Google Hotel Ads, do not hesitate to contact us.

The thing is to reinvent oneself, to find formulas to differentiate oneself from the competition, to gain more and better guest loyalty and to increase new access routes to increase direct reservations . It is not so much about trying to invent the wheel, but about being able to find possible use cases for solutions and purchasing dynamics that are already applied and have been revealed to be effective in other sectors or segments. This is how Wallet Cards have arrived in the Paraty Tech hotel reservation engine.

Wallet Cards: what do they consist of?

You are probably already familiar, to a greater or lesser extent, with the concept of a Wallet Card . If not, it is quite simple to explain: in general terms, it could be defined as the issuance of virtual or physical cards on which an amount of money is loaded, so that the user can later make payments with it (in view of your next reservation), always according to certain previously defined conditions. From here, the possibilities are endless.

The virtual Wallet Cards of the Paraty Tech hotel reservation engine, a new functionality accessible in the Paraty Hotel Manager, have a very similar operating mechanism to the one just described, but the uses that can be given to them are as diverse as they are interesting.

Possible uses of Wallet Cards

With a wide range of configuration parameters at their disposal, the hotelier can issue as many wallet cards as they want, with very diverse conditions and objectives:

• Compensate a guest
  If a guest experiences an incident or has a bad experience during their stay, they can be compensated with a wallet card so they can enjoy a discount on their next reservation.
  
  
• Attract and/or retain guests
  Campaigns can be launched in which nominative wallet cards are given as an incentive.
  
  
• Establish agreements with companies
  Cards can be created with particular conditions for the workers of a specific company.
  
  
• Have a detail with your workers
  For example, in a chain, cards can be created so that hotel workers can enjoy discounts on stays at other establishments in the hotel chain.
  
  

How Paraty Tech Wallet Cards work

This new functionality is activated directly in Paraty Hotel Manager with an advanced configuration (which will add the account assigned to the account). Once done, under the Useful heading of the menu , the "Wallet Cards" section will appear, from which the cards can be issued.

The hotelier may issue one or more cards for specific guests, or issue cards for multiple recipients. There is no limit on the issuance of wallet cards, but there is a condition of associating each of them with an individual email address . To facilitate this task, the functionality allows the upload of CSV files with the data of each recipient, and the system will automatically generate a card associated with each person included in the file.

Configuration parameters include the following options:

• Recipient email
• Promocode prefix (numbering will be generated automatically)
• Number of cards to be issued
• Expiration date of the card(s)
• Discount to be applied in euros or as a percentage
• Discount type (per day or voucher type)
• Language
• Rate(s) to which it applies

Afterwards, the hotelier will be able to consult at any time the cards issued , their specific configuration parameters, the use that has been made of them, in relation to the number of reservations, the revenue generated and the total discounts applied.

Benefits for the hotelier

The benefits for the hotelier of using Wallet Cards are numerous, since they will have a new resource to encourage, compensate or reward past, present or future guests , favoring the opening of a new way to boost reservations through the channel. straight. All this from an environment that you know very well and through a simple and intuitive module:

• Security and convenience The wallet card is generated, configured, sent and managed from the booking engine extranet, with which you are already very familiar.


• Agility and automation of processes Generating wallet cards is very easy and fast, and the possibility of uploading a CSV file also greatly speeds up multiple card issuance.


• Flexibility The hotelier has multiple configuration parameters that will allow him to determine the duration of the promotion / expiration of the card, personalize the prefix of the promotional code, something very useful to identify the reason for issuance, and determine the language of issuance, among others. Other options.
  Example: The hotel can issue cards for the company JCK, which wants to give €200 wallet cards to its workers or clients so that they can use them to reserve a stay at their hotel. The promotional code will be of type JCK-XXX (where XXX represent random characters). In this way, all members of the company who have been depositaries of the card will receive it in their email, for their use and enjoyment.


• Loyalty Wallet cards can be very useful in turning around an uncomfortable situation, making the initially dissatisfied guest go home happy knowing that they will be able to enjoy a discount on their next stay.
  It can also be an effective way to reward the loyalty of repeat guests, with a detail that will largely ensure a new visit in the future.


This functionality is now available to Paraty Tech booking engine customers. For more information about its activation, please contact your account manager .

Paraty Tech, a global leader in providing cutting-edge technological solutions to boost direct sales for hotels, is thrilled to announce its expansion into the United States market. With offices in Spain, Portugal and Mexico, a client base of 3,000 hotels and over a decade of successful operations worldwide, Paraty Tech is poised to revolutionize the hospitality industry landscape in the US.

At the forefront of this expansion is Rafe Marshall, appointed as the Business Development Manager for the United States. Based in Orlando, Rafe brings a wealth of experience and expertise to Paraty Tech. With a proven track record in driving business growth and forging successful partnerships, Rafe is poised to lead Paraty Tech's strategic initiatives in the dynamic US hospitality sector.

Paraty Tech's hallmark lies in its proprietary technology and unparalleled customer support services, without tickets, distinguishing it as the premier bespoke hotel management software partner. Leveraging a comprehensive suite of solutions including booking engine, website design, online marketing strategies, revenue management tools, global distribution system and an in-house contact center, Paraty Tech consistently empowers hotels to elevate their direct sales channels.

With a track record of delivering an average direct sales increase of 30% for its clients, Paraty Tech is primed to redefine the hotel landscape in the United States. By offering tailored solutions and personalized support, Paraty Tech enables hotels to unlock new revenue streams.

"We are committed to empowering hotels to unleash their full potential and optimize their direct sales for remarkable success," adds Rafe Marshall, Business Development Manager for the United States at Paraty Tech. "I am thrilled to spearhead Paraty Tech's expansion into the US market and to partner with our clients in realizing their business objectives!"

For more information on Paraty Tech's services and its expansion into the US market, please visit www.paratytech.com or contact Daniel Romero.

Media Contact:
Daniel Romero
Director of Communications and Strategic Partnerships
(+34) 666592008
dromero@paratytech.com
www.paratytech.com

The journey of El Llorenç was born in September 2019 with a very clear idea: to create experiences through which its guests could feel and live the most authentic history, culture and gastronomy of the island of Palma de Mallorca. With 33 rooms, this boutique hotel is much more than just a hotel. It is a full-fledged host, whose aim is to make guests feel the true essence of Mallorca.

Paradoxically, its virtue is also the source of the problem. For the same reasons, its distribution is atypical for the destination and, therefore, parity is difficult to control. It is also not easy to decide who should they compare to and defining its competitive set is complex.

The collaboration project between Price Seeker and El Llorenç is a clear example of our willingness to actively listen to the sector. In this sense, the work of Victoria Vergara, revenue & sales manager of the hotel, has been fundamental in creating a tool tailored to its particular casuistry. New levels of filtering, new sites as a source of data and exclusive functionalities have marked the commitment of this unique boutique hotel to our comprehensive price intelligence platform.

Discover all the details of this Business Case.

The telephone remains a crucial point in the customer journey , providing personalized attention that facilitates booking conversions, enhances the guest experience, and fosters loyalty. This type of interaction creates a more human and meaningful connection between the hotel and its guests.

To learn more, read the full article on the ITH blog.

Paraty Tech, leader in technological solutions for the hotel industry, is pleased to announce its presence, this time as an exhibiting company, at the prestigious Cancún Travel Mart 2023, where it will take the opportunity to present for the first time the update of one of its most important tools. successful: Call Seeker. Those attending the event, which will take place from October 11 to 13, 2023 at the Iberostar Selection Cancún, will be able to see this and many other new developments first-hand at Stand 522.

The Cancún Travel Mart is an annual event that brings together professionals from the primarily Mexican tourism industry, providing the opportunity to establish contacts, promote products and services, and learn about the latest trends in the travel and tourism industry. Paraty Tech, the booking engine that currently manages the most beds in the Cancun hotel zone, and which has the trust of brands such as Park Royal Hotels & Resorts, Oasis Hotels & Resorts, Sandos, Barceló, Iberostar, Viva Hotels & Resorts and Wyndham is enthusiastic about this new appearance at the event, as stated by Gina Matheis, CEO of the company:

"Returning to Cancún Travel Mart is a clear symptom of the good evolution of our commercial relations in the country, where we have felt very supported from the first moment, and we are convinced that our ability to continue adding value to the hotels in this destination booming tourism".

Call Seeker 2.0: The definitive tool for hotel call centers

One of the highlights of Paraty Tech's participation at Cancun Travel Mart 2023 will be the presentation of Call Seeker 2.0, the latest version of its innovative call management tool. Call Seeker 2.0 has been designed to help hotels professionalize their telephone service and provide exceptional service to their guests by optimizing and automating voice channel management.

Since its launch, Call Seeker has become one of the most well-received Paraty Tech solutions in the sector. Not in vain, telephone attention in many cases falls to non-specialized departments, such as reception, which will now be able to save time and make the most of very common tasks, such as sending quotes and generating pre-reservations.

Call Seeker, which is integrated with the hotel's booking engine, payment gateway and loyalty program, already supported these functions, which included additional configuration parameters such as manual price modification and locking, availability and the possibility of ignoring space or minimum stay restrictions, in addition to establishing the validity of the quote/pre-reservation.

Now, the new version includes interesting new features, such as multi-property quotes, integration via API with the popular WhatsApp messaging system, and integration with Paraty E-Payments, the technology company's collection system, as Daniel Sánchez explains, Chief Revenue Officer of Paraty Tech:

"Thanks to the new integrations it is now possible, for example, to send a payment link to the guest directly from the platform itself. Call Seeker 2.0 is the best example of how our solutions improve through active listening to the sector. In fact, Many of its new features respond to specific requests from certain hotels or chains, but they will also serve to benefit many other tourist accommodations."

Visit Paraty Tech Stand 522

Paraty Tech invites all attendees at the meeting to visit their stand, number 522, to obtain more information about how their products and services can help, not only to improve efficiency and the guest experience in your hotel, but also to ultimately boosting the increase in direct reservations and, consequently, reducing intermediation costs. According to the words of Milena Castrillejo, Key Account Manager for Mexico and LATAM, "our participation in the fair represents a unique opportunity to meet again with our clients, but also to connect with industry leaders, establish new alliances and demonstrate that our Technology is a living entity that never stops evolving." For more information and to schedule a meeting during Cancun Travel Mart 2023 with Paraty Tech, you can visit their website or write to them directly by email .

Today, September 27, is World Tourism Day. A date that, because of our current activity, but also because of the baggage we carry with us, touches us very closely. This year, the theme is a declaration of intent: Tourism and green investments. Sustainability, in short, or what the vast majority of us understand by this concept.

The RAE has not exactly broken its head when referring to sustainability as the "quality of being sustainable". However, we like another of its meanings much better and it represents very well, in our humble opinion, the magnitude of the term: a characteristic of development that ensures the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.

As you can see, this applies to everything. And in our field, it constitutes a way of proceeding that can be applied to the most diverse fields. From the obvious, such as the effort to use, as far as possible, so-called clean energies, to make responsible use of resources, valuable and scarce in equal parts, such as water, or to reduce our carbon footprint, to issues perhaps not so closely associated in the collective imagination with sustainability, such as care, and, above all, the imperative need to foster greater collaboration between public and private entities to create a tourism model that contributes, through the promotion of destinations (their services, gastronomy, culture, nature, business fabric, etc.), to their deseasonalization. ), to its deseasonalization, and therefore, to favor the preservation and development of its charms, and a harmonious coexistence between its local population and those who decide to visit them.

None of us are going to change the world (a facile argument), but we can contribute to do so (another hackneyed phrase). Whether forced, or out of conviction, that is the way forward. The roadmap we need to set ourselves. We can believe in climate change. We can embrace conspiracy theories and deny its existence or, at least, the real impact of our actions on its future. It matters little. Because the reality is that, beyond the convinced environmentalists and vehement deniers, all these steps are good for the place where we live (we are not talking about the earth as a planet, but also about our country, our city, our municipality) and for the professional activity we have chosen: hospitality. It is very hospitable to ensure the needs of our present, without compromising those of future generations. Or is it?

Moreover, it turns out that the traveler of our time has spoken out and we have the obligation to listen (if not out of conviction, let's do it because there is a lot at stake). Large corporations offer the possibility on their digital platforms to record our actions in this regard (it is no coincidence that they have worked to give them the visibility they deserve), and we know for sure that tourists value them more and more, and that they are willing to invest more in their getaways, vacations or business trips, when they are aware of their small contribution (and consequent conscience-cleansing). An unwritten win-win pact. Greenwashing is not, logically, the ideal model, but it all adds up, why deny it. And if it serves as a pretext to get the batteries (or solar batteries), it's a good thing.

Anyway.... Sharing this brief reflection with all of you is just an excuse to wish you a happy Tourism Day.

Hotansa, a hotel manager with 18 establishments located in different destinations in Andorra, and Paraty Tech, a company that provides services to hotel establishments with the aim of boosting their direct sales, joined their paths in 2021, when they decided to lay the foundations for a comprehensive collaboration.

The project included the design and development of the official websites of each establishment and the group's corporate page, all of them equipped with the reservation engine of the technology company located in Malaga, and the contracting of other products such as Price Seeker (platform price intelligence), Paraty Digital Suite (digital marketing) and Paraty Metas (metasearch engine management).

In the words of Gloria Paris , commercial director at Hotansa, “every year with Paraty Tech we have improved our numbers.” A statement fully aligned with the results obtained in the 2022-2023 winter season , which reflect an increase of 54.5% in direct reservations compared to the same period of the previous year.

Not in vain, as Daniel Sánchez , CRO at Paraty Tech, comments, “this data is very positive, but it is not the only one to be proud of.” And, thanks to Hotansa's balanced distribution mix, between both entities, combining know-how, technology and efforts, they have achieved that the direct channel , with a 12.5% share , rises to second position in volume of sales, equaling the main OTA and only below the number one national channel in ski travel.

Still, far from settling, "this year our goal is to position direct sales first, to be the first to sell our own product," says Néstor Hernández , marketing manager of the hotel management company, who sees the increase in the budget in digital marketing one of the keys to achieving this, trying to reach an audience located one or two levels lower in the sales funnel, and enhancing the relevance of markets such as the British, French or German.

A strategy that they believe they can afford due to their careful control policy, which has led them to maintain the average cost per direct reservation at very low levels, around 4.2% , and to invest 24% less than estimated in platforms. such as Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads. A situation consistent with the metrics and analytics they manage, which indicate that almost 70% of sales come from organic traffic.

The ultimate goal, Gloria concludes, is none other than “positioning Hotansa as the best option in Andorra, placing the direct channel, our official websites, in first position in sales volume, even if it entails a higher average cost per reservation.”

Let's pull the string a bit. The alerts, fittingly said, went off when Price Seeker detected a series of unexpected price inconsistencies on Atrápalo, causing significant discrepancies between the price offered by this channel and the official website. Our tool was extracting and displaying the price without knowing that, in many cases, the Smart discount was being applied, leading to significant disparities with the direct channel.

Price Seeker now extracts the cheapest price

Already aware of Atrápalo's new program, it is important to know that our Price Seeker price intelligence platform already captures the cheapest price offered by the OTA, whether or not the hotel is included in the Smart program during those dates.

Additionally, we are working to soon indicate if that price includes the Smart discount and, if so, also display the percentage of difference. In other words, the price we capture is the cheapest that the user can end up paying if they register for the program. If not, they will pay more, but never less than the price shown on our platform.

From retail to travel

E-commerce, essentially, involves buying and selling goods and services using the Internet. According to this generic definition, online room reservations, regardless of the channel used, would fall within what is commonly known as e-commerce.

On more than one occasion, we have mentioned that the hotel sector has much to learn and import from others, such as the audiovisual entertainment industry or marketplaces. Leveraging the vast volume of data generated by their users through browsing habits, queries, and acquisitions, these players excel in offering hyper-personalized experiences and deploying aggressive and effective loyalty mechanisms that help retain customers, ensuring future purchases.

Well, it seems that some are already taking note of this modus operandi. This is the case with the new Atrápalo loyalty program. As we have already mentioned, the whistle-blower responsible for alerting us to its existence has been none other than Price Seeker, our hotel price intelligence platform.

What is Smart?

To make sure you understand what it entails, let's establish a brief parallel with Amazon Prime. You may be familiar with it, but if not, let us remind you how it works. Amazon users have access to the Prime subscription, involving an annual fee (currently at 49.90€, though initially, it was half this cost) in exchange for several benefits:

• Fast and free shipping on a wide selection of products
• Free access to Prime Video
• Free access to Prime Reading
• Free access to Prime Music
• Prime Day: an exclusive day of offers for Amazon Prime customers
• Unlimited storage on Amazon Photos

Privileges that not only translate into revenues from the subscription fee, but ultimately invite the consumer to make repetitive purchases on the Amazon marketplace and repeatedly use its complementary services. But most importantly, once the need is created and the customer is caught in their networks, the latter is, in a way, at the mercy of their commercial interests.

Atrápalo's Smart is based on this annual subscription model, and even the cost (50€ per year) bears a suspicious resemblance to Amazon's. In exchange for that amount, the user "can buy with them unlimitedly, benefiting from exclusive discounts during the subscription period" on certain products offered by the OTA and identified with the "Smart" label, such as flights, hotels, flight + hotel.

Atrápalo has been clever in crafting this loyalty program because its legal basis does not specify which products will have the Smart label or the amount of the discount. Therefore, everything indicates that its strategy is designed, on the one hand, to attract repeat customers and, on the other hand, to promote the products they are most interested in selling.

How much are the discounts with Atrápalo's Smart?

This is the million-dollar question, and to answer as accurately as possible, the product being booked and the value of the reservation must be considered because the discount range is very broad.

In the example shown below, a search for Malaga in August, the discounts applied to different hotels range between 6% and 12%. However, for flights and trains, it can go up to 30%.
The subscription to the Smart program is carried out during the same purchasing process, and for future purchases, logging in will be necessary to benefit from the associated discounts. This is similar to the locked rates of loyalty clubs implemented by certain hotels, which are always displayed and can be selected, but when it comes time to complete the reservation, joining the club is necessary to enjoy the best price.
This is how they describe the program on their website:

"The Smart subscription is a new annual subscription service offered by Atrápalo to buy Flights, Hotels, and Flight+Hotel with exclusive discounts for SMART customers. The subscription is contracted simultaneously with the purchase of a flight, train, or hotel. When you buy, we offer you the option to subscribe to Smart and start enjoying exclusive discounts on Flights, Hotels, and Flight+Hotel. By subscribing to our Smart program, you benefit from exclusive discounts on the prices of our flights, trains, and hotels for 12 months. In this way, you can buy with us unlimitedly, benefiting from these discounts during the subscription period."

And here you can check the general terms and conditions of the subscription.

Do not lose detail of your last reservations

It's not artificial intelligence, but hey, it is an intelligent novelty, because we know that it responds to a real need. As much as technology evolves, we will always end up reviewing the list of reservations for the day, paper and highlighter in hand, checking that everything is in order to offer the best guest experience.

For the enemies of Anglicisms, the rooming list is nothing more than a document used in the hotel industry to provide detailed information on the distribution of rooms and the guests who will occupy them, during a certain period of time. The rooming list is important to the hotel as it helps organize and allocate rooms efficiently, and to guests as it ensures a smooth stay and allows them to confirm that their booking details and preferences are correct prior to arrival.

At Paraty Tech, as hoteliers that we are, we know that, although there are many procedures that continue to be carried out, commonly said, "on the old lady's account", it is essential to be able to contribute to their streamlining and efficiency, thus optimizing the productivity of the establishment staff and favoring its natural operation.

From the direct engine to your email

A new functionality of our booking engine saves the hotelier from having to access the extranet to check the day's reservations generated through the official website, which will now be sent daily to your email (or to the email accounts you indicate ). A very comfortable way of respecting current processes, improving them in terms of efficiency.

In that email the hotelier will have in a very accessible way data such as:

• reservation identifier
• Origin of the reservation (mobile, Google My Business web, call center, etc.)
• Check-in and check-out date
• Country
• Occupation
• Fee
• promo code
• Room
• Regime
• Comments
• Price
• Additional services

Activating this functionality is as simple as adding an advanced configuration, indicating the recipient emails. You still do not have it active and you would like it to be like that? Get in touch with your account.

The alliance between FlexMyRoom and Paraty Tech takes a new giant step with the launch of a new product that will allow hotels to include travel assistance insurance as an additional service in their online booking process. The Pandemic, and the insecurity of travelers as a result of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, highlighted the need to take out travel insurance that guarantees the reimbursement of your reservation, in case you are forced to cancel your trip, and/or the coverage of health expenses in case of contracting the infection and needing medical treatment. Once the worst of this tragic situation has been overcome, this type of product continues to be in high demand, both by the guest and by the hotelier.

In addition, as a curious fact, the launch could not come at a more opportune moment, because due to the next general elections that will take place on July 23 (in the middle of the summer vacation campaign), after being called in advance by the current Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, there has been an understandable slowdown in bookings and a certain fear of an increase in cancellations. On the one hand, due to the obvious desire to exercise their desire to vote, but also due to the fear of Spanish citizens of being forced to cancel their vacations if they are called to fill a position at one of the polling stations. A circumstance that would not be so dramatic if you had travel insurance.

What is truly new?

Until now, insurance used to be packaged with a specific rate, forcing the user to select it if they wanted to enjoy the benefits associated with contracting this product, thus limiting their options and preferences. And, in parallel, this format also prevented the hotelier from marketing their inventory with full freedom. For this reason, after months of work, listening to requests and receiving feedback, carrying out tests and carrying out improvement work, we are very happy to announce the launch of a new optional assistance product that adds to those already active in FlexMyRoom and Paraty Tech.


As of today, hotels can now offer their clients, through the official website, travel assistance insurance as an additional service, in the second step of the reservation process, regardless of the rate selected by the user, improving thus retention and loyalty, and matching the offer of most OTAs.

It should be remembered that the disparities are not only in price, and with this novelty, this particular form of disparity is also put to an end, while a positive disparity is generated with all those channels that do not have this alternative.

Over the last year, the purchase of travel insurance has grown remarkably. A situation that has not gone unnoticed by insurers, and which has also been echoed by the main hotel distribution channels, which have already made a move, as Miguel Signes, CEO of FlexMyRoom, explains:

"Every day, the industry continues to move towards hyper-segmentation and personalization of the customer experience. For this reason, most OTAs already allow users to purchase travel insurance on their platform during the booking process. From Hence, from FlexMyRoom, in collaboration with our partners and hotels, we have developed this new product so that the traveler continues to find the best, most competitive and customizable option, on the hotel's own website.We are really excited that this new product by finally see the light and take one more step towards that personalization of experience, both for the hotelier and for the traveler."

What are the advantages of including travel assistance insurance during the booking process?

By offering travel insurance, the hotel provides protection for its guests and demonstrates that it cares about the well-being and safety of its guests during their trip and stay.

In other words, it constitutes a competitive advantage, in the form of peace of mind, which will allow travelers to enjoy their stay without unnecessary worries.

This new product is added to those already active and will allow the customer to take out travel assistance insurance and customize their vacation directly in the booking process without having to leave the hotel's website.

Just as some OTAs or tour operators already include this service on their platform, with Paraty Tech and FlexMyRoom the hotel can also offer it to its direct customers and, thus, improve retention on its booking engine, avoiding unnecessary leaks, and increasing the satisfaction of its guests.

You want to know more?

You can contact your Paraty Tech Account Manager directly or, if you prefer, follow the following 3 easy steps:

1. Access the FlexMyRoom website and go to products.
2. Click on LEARN MORE and fill in the form, selecting the product "Optional travel assistance insurance".
3. We will contact you to see the connection details.

If you already have the Paraty Tech booking engine, activating it will be a matter of minutes.

One of the highlights of the first day of the TecnoHotel Forum was the panel The complex world of hotel distribution, under debate , in which we had the pleasure of participating, represented by Daniel Sánchez , Chief Revenue Officer of Paraty Tech . From the start, he had it all, and he did not disappoint. Accompanying our colleague was a daring, funny, expert and hotelier moderator, committed, between laughs, not to mention the word "parity", for a matter of principle and maturity ( Alfonso Pérez , from Only YOU Hotels), a representative of the company that owns the metasearch engine that has grown the most in recent years ( Zuriñe Eguizábal , from Travel at Google), a specialist in one of the most anticipated markets and with the greatest projection for the future ( Guillem Gisbert , from Ctrip) and a true heavyweight in hotel distribution ( Xavier Cortés , from Keytel).

On the table, the most diverse topics and of great interest to hoteliers, especially taking into account that we are facing a rarefied scenario, in which a long period of increased demand, with a customer willing to pay more, It collides head-on with a slowdown in the rate of reserves over the last few weeks and an economic context still marked by an always threatening inflation. The order of the day was established:

• What role will the Asian market play next and when?
• Why invest in Google Hotel Ads
• How to sell more through the direct channel
• What are the potential and emerging markets
• Omnichannel
• Artificial intelligence

Less little birds in the head, better foundations

Although, as we have already mentioned, we are experiencing a period of excess demand, the reality is that this is not the case in all markets and, depending on the destination, these indicators behave unevenly, making it necessary to resort to a mix of channels more varied and appropriate to the destination, without failing to take advantage of the billboard effect of large companies such as Booking.


Daniel Sánchez , Chief Revenue Officer at Paraty Tech , confirmed that "in Spain, the ones that continue to pull the bandwagon the most are the UK, Germany, the US and France" . The rest of the markets represent more residual percentages and to capture demand you have to spend more, knowing that the ROI will be lower. And, although it seems that only digital marketing formats are valued, Daniel assures that "things go beyond online marketing" and that "in certain markets it is essential to have a physical presence".

What do we have to do to sell a lot through the direct channel?

To the million dollar question, Daniel responded forcefully: less little birds in the head, more building a good foundation . Immediately afterwards, he finished explaining himself: "The motor always goes to our heads, but there is an offline part, the telephone, which does not stop growing, especially in vacations, in which important disbursements are made, and the telephone builds trust."

There is no magic formula to sell a lot, but there are some minimums that must be met: "Have a good price, develop a 360 strategy, invest in marketing, be well positioned... start rolling with this and, from there, think about incorporating some of the multitude of add-ons that exist. We have reached a point where the engine and the web are now just commodities, what is important is everything that surrounds it: loyalty, crm, Wi-Fi connection… the options are endless”.

"There is no need to put a ceiling on investment in marketing"

The thing was to obtain irrefutable answers, universal truths, in which to take refuge to increase profitability. However, the goose that lays the golden eggs exists only in stories. An important step, in terms of online marketing, is to assume that investments are being made, not expenses, because there is always a return. For this reason , "there is no need to put a ceiling if the ROI is good, because limited budgets limit the hotelier". Everyone seems to already agree that direct sales can end up being as expensive as brokered ones, "but, even if it ends up costing us 15 or 18%, it will always be more interesting to sell direct than through an OTA". For this reason, Daniel advised to stop thinking in net amounts to start working with “floating budgets, and establish an affordable cost translated into a percentage”.

We hope that 2024 will be the year of full recovery of the Asian market

Despite the fact that in May the volume of international searches grew by 60% and that of reservations by 40%, perhaps the number of Chinese visitors is still not as expected. Something that Guillem Gisbert, Country Manager Spain & Portugal at Trip.com/Ctrip, who is confident that 2024 will be the year of full recovery for this market, attributes to different factors: "China has suffered the biggest lockdown in the world, although its de-escalation has also been faster than that of any other country. Just like in Europe, now that borders have just been opened, they are traveling mostly locally, to the places they know and where they feel comfortable. But it is also that there are handicaps that condition international travel, "we must recover the air routes and solve the issue of visas," he says.

Like the rest of the speakers, Guillem agrees on the importance of knowing the particularities of each market in order to be able to offer travelers the product they want, through the channels in which they feel comfortable, just when the one who demand it. But when we refer to the Asian market, and more specifically, to the Chinese one, this question directly becomes one of the most important.

There you can't kill flies with cannon shots. It is not enough to make a literal translation of our website into your language and wait for reservations to start coming in. Of course, there is the issue of language, but also that of influencing those issues that are most interesting to them, in offering them the payment methodologies that generate confidence: "with them, credit cards are not going to work, translating for the sake of translating It's not going to work either, you have to go further, have someone who speaks the language, maybe set up a Chinese breakfast corner, get to know their needs well, those of each existing profile”. For example, "the generation of the only child is the one that is now traveling the most and has the greatest purchasing power," he says. Not surprisingly, China has 1.4 billion potential tourists, but only 150 million have high purchasing power: "It's about making Spain a top of mind destination for Chinese customers," he concludes.

Hotel demand is growing at double digits

The presence at the table of Zuriñe Eguizábal, Industry Manager at Travel at Google, had also generated great interest. Due to the position he occupies within the American giant, Zuriñe has access to an infinity of data associated with the travel sector. Circumstance that, from the start, allowed him to begin by stating that "hotel demand is growing at double digits in most of the key markets". In his opinion, the pandemic has brought about a great change in people, in all of us, and now we appreciate living experiences more. A circumstance that continues to have a direct impact on tourism, "a vertical that grows more than other verticals".

Again very aligned in his answers with many of the opinions of his panelmates, Eguizábal insisted that "it is important to understand which market you are targeting and adapt your recruitment strategy", and he attributes a good part of the success of Google Hotel Ads, one of the goals that has grown the most in recent years, due to its versatility: "There are different strategies depending on the objective: increase traffic (invest in clicks), generate reservations (CPA), profitability (capture reservations from a minimal return) .

All players invest in metasearch engines and bid for the same terms as hotels, including even their own brand. A practice as unethical as widespread. Competing with giants like Booking or Expedia as a brand defense strategy is profitable, as commented by moderator Alfonso Pérez, Corporate Sales and Marketing Senior Director at Only YOU Hotels. However, he was wondering how to compete with the multi-million dollar investments of other players in generic search. As our CRO already said, the Google representative spoke of assuming a "structural and financial change" and asking herself "how much am I willing to pay for a direct sale by brand, and how much for one from someone who doesn't know me" because, Obviously, we are talking about a very different investment volume.

The distribution is not complex, the complex thing is to find a balanced distribution

Xavier Cortés, Managing Director at Keytel , was expected, above all, to shed some light on the complex (or not so complex) world of current hotel distribution, in which, in his opinion, "there is a loss of control, due in part to the redistribution exercised by all the actors. The hotelier perceives and is aware of this reality, which has led him to bet on the channel that makes the most sense, direct. The truth is that this loss of control translates into a generalized lack of traceability, and the direct channel is the exception that confirms the rule.

The pandemic was a turning point in distribution. As a consequence, the hotelier has reduced channels and there the direct channel has taken advantage, but it has not been the only beneficiary of this situation, as Xavier highlighted when he assured that "the great winner of the Pandemic has been Booking" .

Cortés also shared that feeling of slowdown in reserves in recent weeks: “Europe has behaved very well until this last week, in which there are certain flattening indicators. Internationally, the Latin American market offers very good prospects (especially Brazil, Mexico, Argentina) and the Middle East is also doing very well. It is also hopeful that next year we can once again count on the Chinese market and India, a country with even greater possibilities of adapting in the short term, with fewer cultural and technological barriers". highlight the determining role played by knowledge of the different markets: “Understanding the markets will allow us to diversify better” .

There are markets with a very important offline component. The Latin American, for example, which is controlled by a few operators, and some global player as well. In fact, on occasions, the fact that the two large OTAs are present in certain markets leads us to think that they are enough, but it is a mistake: "It makes us depend, especially at a time like the present, of overdemand, in which everything seems easy. However, when there is a correction in the demand, that is when you see if I have really done my homework."

In short, the key is to manage not to give up any market, to any segment, and it is not just a question of reducing channels, but of finding the ones that generate value for me in each market.

What to expect from artificial intelligence?

It is on everyone's lips and, who else, who less, everyone has an opinion about it, including the participants in this interesting table in which practically nothing was left unanswered.


While Daniel Sánchez was convinced that, in terms of direct sales, "the possibilities of AI are endless" (for content generation, to work on SEO, etc.), Xavier referred to generative AI as "the future of the way to search for trips” and to the blockchain as a technology with “a long way to go” . For his part, Zuriñe spoke of the possibility of "colliding the data we have with that of the hotel's own CRM to find the most profitable customer, who is most interested, and thus end up paying for each channel based on the value it generates, not not just today, but 5 years from now." Lastly, Guillem recognized that Ctrip is already integrated via API with OpenAi (Chat GPT), both internally and at the user level, which translates into greater ease when searching, to they avoid leaks in search of additional information.

The hotel chain has been in business for more than 30 years

Park Royal Hotels & Resorts, a hotel chain with more than 30 years of experience and presence in the best destinations in Mexico, USA, Puerto Rico and Argentina, chooses Paraty Tech as a technology provider to boost the sales of its direct channels.

Paraty Tech, with headquarters in Torremolinos (Spain) and branches in Cancun (Mexico) and Albufeira (Portugal), specialised in the development of technological solutions aimed at increasing the direct reservations of hotels and hotel chains, continues its incursion into Mexico with a firm step, incorporating the hotel chain Park Royal Hotels & Resorts to its portfolio of clients.

The choice of Paraty Tech by Park Royal Hotels & Resorts is based on the vast experience of the technology company, as well as its wide range of services, which translates into greater agility of implementation, favours the integration and interconnection between modules and tools, significantly reducing the number of interlocutors and favouring client-supplier communication.

With this partnership, Park Royal Hotels & Resorts has satisfied its need for renewal, evolution and adaptation to the present time, betting even more on its direct channel to achieve its objectives. Seeking to squeeze the maximum potential out of their official website, they have completely re-launched it with a daring integral renovation of image and usability, which has led them to gain positioning, freshness and user experience. This is how Claudia López Huesca, Corporate Marketing Manager of the hotel chain, explains it:

"We know the potential that our direct channel has. Our expectation and challenge is for it to reach a sales share of 20% of our annual closing. The objective of this evolution, in addition to improving the experience and usability of our current and potential customers with a fully optimised website for any device, is to take advantage of technology to simplify processes and be more productive, focusing more on planning strategies and being able to configure them in the system in a quick and easy way. And what could be better than to be accompanied at all times by experts who share our same objective: to maximise the direct channel. It was necessary to dare to make a big change and we are convinced that Paraty Tech is the best option, and they have demonstrated this from the beginning".

The project has ranged from the design of the website, 100% customised, with independent versions for desktop and mobile devices, to the implementation of the booking engine, loaded with new ad-hoc functionalities and directly integrated with Duetto, the chain's RMS, including the loyalty programme, Loyalty Experiences by Park Royal, the Park Royal Pro module for professionals and the deofuscation of the blog, now much more visible for Google, and loaded with resources to get to know and enjoy the facilities of its heterogeneous offer of establishments and the destinations in which they are located. A complete and enriching experience for potential and current guests.

The agreement also involves the adoption of the role of digital marketing partner by Paraty Tech. Through its Paraty Digital Suite division, the company is carrying out, from day one, a meticulous work of positioning the official website and generating traffic to it, which is already bearing its first fruits. It includes the management of metasearch, SEM and Social Ads campaigns, the creation and sending of newsletters, and meticulous SEO and UX work, "an indestructible tandem in the direct channel" according to the words of Carlos Mérida, Product Designer at Paraty Tech:

"The new Park Royal Hotels & Resorts website is a clear success story in many ways. For example, it has gone from 9500 keywords positioned in October 2022 to more than 25700 today. The information architecture has also been improved, reducing the number of URLs with Thin Content (content of little value) in favour of landings for each establishment, loaded with content of interest to the user. All of this paying special attention to accessibility (outlining the brand's corporate colour palette and adapting texts), giving great importance to the attraction power of video, cleaning up online reputation (disavowing fraudulent links) and optimising international labelling (language codes for the main core markets)".

One of the main challenges when undertaking such an important change was to ensure that the diverse range of Park Royal Hotels & Resorts brands, associated respectively with the different types of accommodation they manage, coexisted in harmony within the corporate site. Rafael Sandoval / Commercial Director at Park Royal explains:

"Park Royal Hotels & Resorts has a brand manual that represents the values that mean everything to us, but we felt that our previous site did not reflect them properly. It was crucial that Grand Park Royal Luxury Resorts, Park Royal Beach Resorts, Park Royal City and Park Royal Homestay could share the spotlight but without losing their identity and market, each product needed its own space and images and a cleaner, brighter, fresher and more modern website, without giving up its content, that is, its own autonomy and identity. An objective that we are sure we have achieved thanks to the commitment and involvement of Paraty Tech".

This is undoubtedly a very ambitious step for the hotel chain, to which Paraty Tech has responded, above all, with a sense of responsibility, always aware of the complexity and importance of the assignment, according to its CEO & Co-founder, Gina Matheis:

"From the beginning of our discussions with Park Royal we understood perfectly what this project represented for both of us. From their perspective, a commendable vote of confidence. From ours, it was a golden opportunity to make our mark on the Mexican hotel industry, demonstrating that the big players are betting on our technology. We knew that it would mean putting all our heart and soul into it, and that is what we have done from the very first second. Starting with a good, solid and stable foundation, and finishing off the work with a host of tweaks that make it very different from the rest".

When she talks about "tweaks" she is referring to those little details that make the difference, such as the browser tab titles, which confess to "missing you" if you change tabs, independent and coherent colour palettes for each brand, the display of rooms in list mode or in mosaic mode, a blog that allows you to filter by theme, the display of a featured hotels module when you click on "Book" without having previously chosen an establishment, the new flexible calendar, the option to change currency in real time or to hire a transfer with immediate confirmation during the booking process, or a mobile version that is independent and optimised to the highest level.

In conclusion, Daniel Sanchez, Chief Revenue Officer at Paraty Tech, reminds us that:

"Bringing the project into production is only the first step. Our work includes exhaustive, daily monitoring, so that absolutely everything is always optimised, with no margin for error: prices, parity, meta search engines, offers, incentives, content, page speed, general stability of the site... We want to demonstrate the extraordinary growth potential of the direct channel and to be able to do so hand in hand with Park Royal is a precious gift".

Paraty Tech sponsors Turistech Day

• It will be held on May 25 via streaming and in the metaverse of the school for free
• It will feature speakers such as Alfonso Pérez Liñán, Corporate Sales and Marketing Sr. Director at Only YOU Hotels, Elena Mateos, CEO & Founder of HotelSAAS and Jesús García González, Co-Founder of Xperiencia Virtual, among others

Barcelona, May 15, 2023.- Technology has had a profound impact on all industries, and tourism has not been an exception. This is how the Turistech concept was born, which aims, thanks to digitization, to promote sustainable and inclusive tourism that benefits both travelers and the local population and their environment. For this reason, IEBS Digital School celebrates Turistech Day , an event that will bring together experts from the tourism industry to discuss the new trends and opportunities that are emerging from digital transformation, which we at Paraty Tech have the great pleasure of sponsoring.

The use of digital tools is key to attract increasingly hyperconnected tourists and to engage with them in an intelligent and scalable way. In this context, Turistech Day was created to offer tourism professionals a unique opportunity to learn about the latest trends and challenges in the ecosystem.

The event will feature recognized experts in the field of Turistech, who will share their experiences and knowledge on how to implement new technologies in tourism businesses. They will talk about, among other things, marketing and innovation in tourism 4.0, how to create immersive experiences using the Metaverse, key technologies for personalizing the tourist experience in hotels and future technologies in the tourism sector, among others. things.

The speaker's agenda will feature recognized professionals in the sector, such as Alfonso Pérez Liñán, Corporate Sales and Marketing Sr. Director at Only YOU Hotels, Elena Mateos, CEO & Founder of HotelSAAS, Jesús García González, Co-Founder of Xperiencia Virtual, José Luis Fernández, Chief Commercial Officer at Jacidi & eRoom Suite, Jorge Vallina, Managing Partner & CEO at Global Consulting and Tourism and Rocío Rojas, founding CEO of Turistech, among others.

Turistech Day is a free online event that will take place on May 25. It can be followed in streaming or in the metaverse from anywhere in the world.

Lastly, and for all those professionals in the industry, IEBS offers the Postgraduate in Tourism Transformation: Turistech and Traveltech, a program to learn to adapt to the changes that occur in organizations and the needs of an increasingly demanding and documented.

You can register for the event here

About IEBS Digital School

IEBS is the 1st online digital native school in Spanish in the world. It was born in 2010 with the purpose of improving society with quality education at a fair price, thanks to technology, automation and the use of artificial intelligence. Since its inception, IEBS has trained more than 123,000 students in 53 countries with its more than 350 programs at the forefront of innovation. It is considered the 1st online business school in Spain according to the CSIC ranking and the 2nd in Latin America according to the Ibero-American ranking.

About Paraty Tech

At Paraty Tech we have spent a decade optimizing our solutions and promoting direct sales of more than 3,000 hotels, hotel chains and other tourist accommodation. Reducing the dependence on OTAs thanks to our booking engine, the most advanced revenue management tools and a wide range of online marketing services, including connectivity and metasearch engine management. In technology we trust.

Times have changed

Although it is unthinkable now, there was a time, many years ago, when there were satisfied or dissatisfied customers. A comment could be positive or negative. In other words, there were no degrees of satisfaction, because there was no way to quantify it, to assign it a value.

Then came companies like Booking and Tripadvisor which, even back then, understood and anticipated the leading role that guest reviews would play in the future, and invented a new way of measuring the degree of satisfaction, offering the possibility of assigning a rank to the reviews. Not only that, but different aspects of the stay could also be rated by giving different grades for issues such as cleanliness, location, staff treatment, facilities, gastronomic quality, etc. Nowadays, we apply all these values together to define the quality of a service.

Price parity does not exist

Something very similar happens with parity. Beyond those who speak of the end of parity, or refer to it as a utopia, the truth is that almost everyone tends to simplify the analysis of parity, reducing it to two possible options: I control it (I am in parity), or I do not control it (I am not in parity). Once again, this is a very biased view, which avoids an approach to which we do give a great deal of credit: the degree of parity. An indicator that has a direct impact on a hotel's operating data and, therefore, on its income statement.

We will not deny the evidence. It is indisputable that avoiding disparities 100% is practically impossible, as it does not depend solely on our distribution network, nor on our work. Unfortunately, and sometimes, contrary to what is specified in the contracts we sign, certain channels have, in turn, many other collaborators who are the ones who end up selling the beds that we had given to the primary collaborator.

And in this "chain of favors", it is very difficult to maintain control and detect certain disparities. But this is one thing, and to resign oneself to it, or what amounts to the same thing, to forget about price parity, under the argument that, whatever I do, it is beyond my control, is quite another. Price parity is one of the basics of hotel direct selling, and measuring it is essential to guarantee the success of our strategy.

Precisely for this reason, at Price Seeker we decided to "cook" the Parity Index, an exclusive indicator based on our own algorithms, which establishes a system for measuring parity management, assigning it a value that moves in a range from 0 (the worst possible management) to 100 (the best possible management). In short, the Parity Index offers a very interesting reading that tells us how efficiently or poorly we are managing parity.

Today, there are already many large hotel chains on the national scene that are governed by this criterion. The Parity Index works for them as a guide for the preparation of a clear commercial strategy and a healthy distribution mix. It also serves as a tip-off that identifies and minimizes channels that operate without control and that only contribute to generate discrepancies that damage the brand image and prevent a defined and efficient revenue management.

How the parity index works

Next, we will try to explain in a simple way how the Parity Index works, although it is important to take into consideration that the algorithm has defined a very precise valuation that responds to the heterogeneous casuistry of the different types of tourist accommodation.

Rating system

• Parity Index is 0: all searches are in discrepancy.
• Parity Index is 100: all searches match the official price.
• Parity Index is any value between 0 and 100: this value corresponds to the degree of discrepancies detected, based on different criteria, such as discounts, visibility, commission and conversion, among others.

Price Seeker V4 users have the Parity Index at their disposal to manage their parity, and the best way to exploit the potential of this indicator is to follow a few simple steps:

1. Log in to your Price Seeker V4 environment with your credentials.
2. In the Easy Track Dashboard, identify the Parity index and your Top Offenders (the channels that are generating the most disparities).
   
   
3. Access the Parity dashboard by applying the desired filters.
   
   
4. Detect the metasearch engines and OTAs that have the lowest Parity Index and are offering the highest differential.
   
   
5. Check the main table paying special attention to the numbers marked in red to verify the prices offered.
6. Detect disparities through the OTAs and Metas detail table.
7. Go as deep as you want using the filtering system.

We are Google Premier Partner

The creation of Paraty Digital Suite was once a declaration of intent by this technology company based in Torremolinos (Málaga) and offices in Cancún (Mexico) and Albufeira (Portugal). This important step, in addition to ratifying the growing role of digital marketing within the commercial strategy of hotels, implied, above all, Paraty Tech's firm determination to strengthen this department, considering it as a fundamental pillar for direct sales. hotel company , placing itself at the same level as others such as the official website, the reservation engine or the revenue management and price control tools.

Today, this change of direction and the strong investment in resources and personnel associated with it, recently reinforced with the incorporation of Bárbara Balderas as digital marketing director , has borne fruit. And Google has recognized this work by granting Paraty Tech the status of Google Premier Partner 2023 , granted only to 3% and reviewed annually.

To select this select group of collaborators, Google takes into consideration variables such as the volume of investment and optimization of the campaigns, the diversification of channels, technology, or the degree of specialization and certification of the team members who manage all of this. .

Paraty Tech has been developing solutions and implementing tools for more than a decade to enhance the direct sales of hotels, hotel chains and other tourist accommodations. This recognition constitutes not only indisputable proof that, far from having stagnated, they continue to update their range of services according to the new needs of their clients, but it also represents a well-deserved award both for them and for the hotel establishments with which they who work, who have placed all their trust in the Paraty Tech experts and have undertaken the relevant investments, always guided by the recommendations of the members of Paraty Digital Suite.

In the words of Bárbara Balderas, director of digital marketing at Paraty Tech, “we could not be happier with this recognition that, on the one hand, clears up any possible doubt about the contribution of digital marketing to direct sales and the importance of not putting a ceiling on to the investment in this field as long as the return is as expected, on the other hand, it further increases my level of confidence in this wonderful team that I have just joined (all the credit is theirs) and, finally, it opens many doors for us to "to definitively position ourselves as authentic specialists in the field."

For her part, Gina Matheis, CEO of the company, is aware that “thanks to the extraordinary work of the team, we will now enjoy multiple advantages associated with this recognition that will allow us to improve even more, such as access to new Google products in the pipeline.” beta, to the most recent statistics and trends, and to exclusive events organized by the American technology giant.”

The Hotel Technology Institute (ITH) adds Ring2Travel as a new partner in the Call Center area.

The objective of this association is to incorporate a new resource with which to continue strengthening the advisory work of the Hotel Technology Institute (ITH) . Through the accession of Ring2Travel, they continue to expand the range of tools they make available to associated hotels, on this occasion, adding a service that is currently in high demand by hotel establishments and their guests. A trend supported by data from January 2023, which has recorded an increase of more than 50% in the number of calls answered, and 73.8% in net sales, compared to the same period last year.

The Torremolinos-based company offers solutions both for those hotels that already have telephone service personnel and are looking to improve interaction with their guests, automating workflows and expanding their commercial capabilities, and for those who feel the need to include this channel in your sales strategy , outsourcing this service to avoid undertaking new investments.

Julián Alcolea , Head of Operations at Ring2Travel, explains that: “The traditionally called Call Center has never stopped being there, but over the last few years the voice channel has gained in relevance, confirming itself as one of the most profitable and requested by the guest. We are certain that through our membership in the ITH we will be able to make hoteliers aware of its growing importance, as well as open their eyes to the multiple benefits of incorporating it into their direct sales strategy.”

For his part, the general director of ITH, Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz , points out that: “There is no doubt that the Customer Service department is key and indispensable for the tourism sector, it provides considerable value and is essential for creating adapted strategies. and well defined. Through this department empathy is created and the best time to generate a relationship of trust to advance guest loyalty. For this reason, we see it as appropriate to work hand in hand with Ring2Travel and bring this necessary solution to the sector that differentiates us and brings us excellence.”

About Ring2Travel

Ring2Travel is the customer experience center or contact center of the Paraty World group, designed to complete the direct sales strategy of hotels, hotel chains and other tourist accommodations, regardless of the booking engine, the destination and the markets with which they work. Specialized agents act on behalf of the hotel, presenting themselves as hotel staff, offering telephone service in up to 5 languages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Ring2Travel's range of services includes handling incoming calls, outgoing pre-stay and cancellation recovery campaigns, outgoing calls as reinforcement for campaigns on key dates (Black Friday, Valentine's Day, etc.), call overflow service, click to call campaign on the website, management of chats and mailboxes, etc. In addition, they also offer the Call Seeker solution, a reservation quoting and pre-reservation generation tool for establishments that already have their own reservation agents.

Benefits of SEO for Hotels

SEO positioning for hotels can benefit the increase in direct sales for your hotel or tourist business. What are the strategies and tools that Paraty Tech uses to achieve this goal? Join us, we'll tell you everything.

SEO Positioning in the Hotel Sector

First, let's take a look at the hotel sector. According to a report by the consulting firm We Are Marketing, online bookings will grow by 261% in the coming years due to digitization. OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) are one of the most consolidated and preferred booking channels for users. What can be done to increase direct bookings? The answer is a good online marketing strategy.

Users search the internet and compare prices and services before making a reservation. As a result, the website of your hotel or tourist complex must operate correctly (both the booking engine and all integrated functionalities). If the page is not attractive or does not function correctly, it will affect your bookings and the SEO positioning of your hotel.

SEO Strategy for Hotels

The SEO strategy for hotels begins with a study of the potential customer and their journey to formalize the reservation. This data is obtained from the hotel's own database and tools, such as Google Analytics. A family looking for accommodation does not have the same needs and interests as a solo traveler, so these factors must be taken into account when working accordingly.

Keyword Research

Keyword research will improve your website traffic, increase its visibility, and ranking in search results (SERP). There are numerous tools to conduct this type of study, but one of our favorites is SEMrush. The hotel sector is a market niche with high demand and competitiveness, so the keyword strategy to attack should be long-tail and related to the user's search intent, for example:

• Service prices (hotel + location + offers): hotel name in Malaga, offers.
• Service level (hotel + location + with service): hotel name in San Sebastian with parking.
• Target audience and location (hotel + target audience + location + services/service level): hotel name for families in Tenerife.
• Target audience and services (hotel + target audience + location + services/service level): hotel name for families in Tenerife promotions.

Once the keyword strategy is designed, it will be used to:

• Design or optimize the website architecture and URL structure.
• Content curation to promote services and products.
• Update or create content for the blog (we recommend that your site has one).
• Optimize on-page elements (title and meta descriptions).

Mobile Compatibility

According to the 2021 mobile report by Ditrendia, Spain is the European country where we spend the most time on mobile phones, and 76% of users have already made purchases through their mobile devices. Therefore, your hotel's website must be compatible, function correctly, and be optimized so that your potential customer can make reservations through their mobile.

Local SEO for Hotels

Local SEO positioning is essential for your hotel; it provides visibility to your business for users who perform a geolocated search, helps you compete against OTAs, and increases direct sales. The Google My Business listing is the star of local SEO. How can you optimize it? Here are some of our recommendations:

• Upload photos and a 360º video.
• Review and respond to visitor comments.
• Ensure that it is up to date.

Conclusions

In summary, if you leave it in the hands of our team of professionals, who will implement the techniques described above and use the right tools; they will design a SEO strategy for hotels that will provide the following benefits:

Start Trendy Tech Tips '23

Record

Registration to attend these face-to-face training sessions with limited capacity is already available through the following Eventbrite links, the only essential requirement being to use the corporate email of the hotel establishment that those interested in booking represent. your square:

CANCUN - MARCH 1, 2023 / GRAND PARK ROYAL HOTEL
https://www.eventbrite.com.mx/e/entradas-trendy-tech-tips-23-cancun-un-must-para-hoteleros-531875593217?aff=Medios

MEXICO CITY - MARCH 2, 2023 / CENTURY REFORMA HOTEL
https://www.eventbrite.com.mx/e/entradas-trendy-tech-tips-23-ciudad-de-mexico-un-must-para-hoteleros-537217230197?aff=Medios

PUERTO VALLARTA - MARCH 3, 2023 / HOLIDAY INN & SUITES HOTEL
https://www.eventbrite.com.mx/e/entradas-trendy-tech-tips-23-puerto-vallarta-un-must-para-hoteleros-537261612947?aff=Medios

They repeat after the success of 2022

After the success of last year's edition, Paraty Tech (booking engine), Asksuite (chatbot) and Duetto (revenue management system) repeat the initiative and organize their Roadshow México 2023. The event, consisting of a series of training days free networking and exclusive coffee-break for hoteliers, under the title "TTT: Trendy Tech Tips '23", will take place throughout the first week of March in different key cities of the country.

Representatives of each one of the companies will offer 40-minute presentations in which they will make a complete tour of the technological trends that this tourist season has in store for us in their respective areas of expertise, offering tips and lines of action to hotels with the objective of maximizing their income, improving their customer service and increasing their sales through the direct channel.

Program

The training sessions will take place between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. of the dates marked on the calendar by the organizers, the first being in Cancun (03.01.23), which will be followed by those in Mexico City (02.02.23) and Puerto Vallarta (03.03.23), with a program which will be replicated to the three destinations:

10:00 a.m. -Asksuite
Trends for high performance management of reservations teams
Karen Mantilla , Account Executive LATAM

10:40 a.m. -Paraty Tech
Direct channel: the future depends on you
Daniel Sánchez , Chief Revenue Officer

11:20 a.m. - Networking Coffee Break

12:20 p.m. - Duet
Trends and predictions to drive revenue strategies
Arturo Gracia , Director of Hospitality Solutions LATAM
Patty Alton , Sales Director LATAM

About the organizers

About Paraty Tech

Paraty Tech is a technology company with offices in Cancun, Albufeira and Malaga that focuses its activity on promoting direct reservations for hotels and hotel chains, both online and offline. Developer of one of the world's leading hotel booking engines, they complement this system with a wide range of 100% in-house revenue management tools, web page design, a complete suite of digital marketing solutions, including the management of campaigns in metasearch engines, and his own hotel call center, Ring2Travel. More than 4,000 hotel establishments around the world rely on its technology.

About Duetto

Duetto offers a suite of cloud-native SaaS applications for hospitality businesses to optimize every booking opportunity for greater revenue impact. The unique combination of hospitality experience and technology leadership drives Duetto to seek innovative solutions to industry challenges. The SaaS platform enables hotels and resorts to take advantage of real-time, dynamic data feeds and actionable insights into prices and demand.

More than 4,000 hotel resort properties in more than 60 countries have partnered to use Duetto's applications, which in both 2022 and 2023, was named the world's #1 revenue management system at the HotelTechAwards.

About Asksuite

With over 2,000 customers in over 40 countries, Asksuite's AI Booking Assistant is linked to a powerful omnichannel service platform, ensuring that hotels can respond to all customer inquiries (both during and after business hours). , also helping teams to organize the workflow with a unified inbox that includes all communication channels. In 2023 Asksuite has been recognized as the best Livechat & Chatbot Website at the Hotel Tech Awards, in addition to occupying the number 3 position in the Best Places to Work ranking and number 5 in the Hoteliers Choice Award, both created by Hotel Tech Report. .

Hosteltur Premium Experts Panel, January 26, 2023

From a panel as anticipated by Hosteltur for weeks, something very good could only come out. And the Premium Experts Panel, under the title "What are the new trends in marketing and tourist distribution that you shouldn't miss?", framed within the actions of Hosteltur Academy, undoubtedly lived up to expectations.

Oliver Espinosa, director of RIU Hotels & Resorts, Daniel Sánchez, CRO of Paraty Tech, and Chema Herrero, CEO of Bedsrevenue, accompanied Neus Tarrés in her role as moderator. Before introducing the first speaker, she opened the session by summarizing the keys of the delicate global context in which we find ourselves immersed, wondering how it could affect tourist distribution and direct hotel sales in 2023, even when the most recent edition of Fitur, concluded last Sunday, left a very good overall impression and expectations of prosperity.

Oliver Espinosa: "The democratization of technology has created a complex distribution environment"

Oliver Espinosa, director of RIU Hotels & Resorts, believes that in recent years, there has been a democratization of technology resulting in a complex environment where wholesalers buy and sell, and the hotel ends up losing control over its rates and inventory. He referred to the concept of "hyperconnected distribution," where B2B to B2C and B2B to B2B to B2B to B2B models coexist.

In this scenario, the retailer, one of the most affected parties, has ended up demanding a direct relationship with the hotel, increasingly widespread. A new mode of relationship characterized, fundamentally, by unmediated interaction and improved information. For hoteliers, it represents a mode of diversification, gaining clarity in the face of hyperconnectivity and reducing distribution costs. For the retailer, it means, among other things:

• Access to a greater number of product versions and additional products
• Meeting orphan demand
• Access to the complete inventory
• Enjoying immediate commission payments

All this is possible thanks to technology, and there are different implementation formulas. However, while the advantages of this marketing format are clear (greater adaptability, lower investment, B2C segmentation, reduced costs in technological terms, etc.), Oliver concluded by emphasizing that the challenges to overcome are not few: widespread credit, PVP and Net parity, metasearch agent, limited product selection, billboard effect, commercial consistency…

Daniel Sánchez: "The key to many of the trends that 2023 holds lies in process automation"

Daniel Sánchez, Chief Revenue Officer of Paraty Tech, focused his intervention on identifying the trends that 2023 holds in terms of direct sales. Specifically, he referred to ten trends that, in his opinion, will largely mark the path that hoteliers must follow for expected results, and where automation has much to say.

Some are old friends of the sector that have resurfaced due to the pandemic, while others represent an innovation for many. However, according to Daniel, there is the technology and resources to implement all of them.

Ancillary Revenue


We don't just mean upselling and cross-selling. We must focus on moving from RevPar to TrevPar. Increasingly, this involves personalizing the experience, probably the best way to compete with OTAs and tour operators. And for this, we must be prepared to be able to sell services beyond accommodation, even independently and through automated processes.



Voice channel


Although there is a widespread lack of specialization in telephone service, if hotels were aware of the potential of this direct channel, which has gained ground due to the pandemic, they would take much better care of it. The voice channel has one of the highest conversion rates and, combined with a good CRM, which facilitates lead tracking through automated tasks, its potential is extraordinary.



"Pro" direct module


Coinciding with everything expressed by Oliver, Daniel emphasized how this module is becoming more and more like Loyalty Clubs for guests. Work is being done on incentive programs and differentiated strategies for each agency. It is a very profitable sale that also contributes a lot in terms of database acquisition.



Artificial Intelligence


Without needing to think about the hotel Minority Report, the truth is that artificial intelligence is not the future; it already coexists with us and is present in the generation and application of business rules, automated sales tips, follow-ups of potential customers, and conversations with guests.



Immersive Purchasing


A trend that is making its way at giant steps and promises the maximum level of customization, while increasing conversion and improving ancillary revenue.



A/B Testing


There is no better way to confirm the appropriateness of the actions we take than through A/B Testing, something that hotels are increasingly clear about. It improves ratios, generates confidence, increases conversion, and enriches the user experience.



Advanced Digital Marketing


It seems that the idea of not putting a ceiling on digital marketing investment is gradually being internalized. Hotels are incorporating specialists in this field, including new channels and models to combat OTAs and maximizing the potential of metasearch engines.



Loyalty


Once relegated almost exclusively to large chains, today it is a must for all establishments, almost a mechanism for capturing the first reservation and, perhaps, also the last. Loyalty is experiencing a new stage of splendor, and the variety of existing programs is a great ally to better understand the guest, improve the customer journey, and, of course, try to ensure a profile of repeat customers.



Omnichannel


Just as the customer can try to contact us through various channels, the hotel must be able to attend to them in all of them in a coordinated manner, online and offline, demonstrating that it knows their preferences and automating communication flow tasks as much as possible.



Direct channel vs. Tour operators


Tour operations have reactivated a lot and will do so even more throughout 2023. Be very careful with opaque packaging, with opaque disparities because this player wants to recover its status, and the hotel cannot afford to let them sell the juiciest part of their inventory.

Chema Herrero: "The numbers have improved a lot, but not due to a change in strategy, but rather a very special situation"

The last intervention of the premium experts panel came from Chema Herrero, CEO of Bedsrevenue, who began by highlighting that, indeed, in 2022 there has been a widespread improvement in the figures associated with hotel sales, with increases in occupancy (33.1%), ADR (11.9%), and RevPAR (49%), but clarifying that it has not been due to changes in strategies but rather to a situation that has been given to us, a "special circumstance," dependent on very changing variables. He talked about good forecasts but that must be interpreted with caution. After this brief introduction, he focused his speech on the importance of finding the unicorn, understood as the Buyer Persona, and the need to ask the right questions: who sells to me, how and when do they do it, how much does it cost me, how profitable is it in terms of RevPar / TrevPar, how loyal is that customer, and what do we really know about them.

Regarding distribution, he also emphasized a recurring idea but still considered a pending subject: it is not enough to just sign contracts. His recommendations involve establishing an intermediation scoring to achieve the much-desired healthy channel mix. The goal is to identify which distributors are not necessary because it is increasingly difficult for a distributor to provide a specialized niche that really helps make a difference. It is, therefore, about defining economic objectives but also defining operational objectives with each of the distributors: budget and action plan, in short.

In the second part of his intervention, he spoke of a "return to the pre-pandemic past," referring to a trend in which the hotelier settles into a mix dependent on tour operations, a player that is working very hard to occupy the position it had before the pandemic. The customer has changed, and we must be able to reach them without depending on third parties. Something that OTAs are very aware of and, relying on technological evolution within distribution, execute perfectly.

Therefore, the roadmap seems clear: we must identify the buyer persona and get involved in the battle for the customer, our present and future buyer. The gold of our time is data, and the cleaner it is, the easier it will be to work with it. We must not be afraid to differentiate between profitable customers, less profitable customers, and customers who simply are not.

To impact each phase of the conversion funnel, we must find a strategy that adds value before, during, and after the stay, understanding Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) as data that must always be on the table. The technology to do this is within our reach, and the ROI it provides is fantastic. It's time to practice, and quoting verbatim, be a surgeon in revenue.

Recap in bullet points

• Direct sale - retailer connection
• Increase TrevPar
• Establish a distribution scoring
• Know the customer in-depth to increase CLV
• Pay special attention to the early sale of distribution
• Be very vigilant of the US market and nearby markets
• Keep an eye on the implementation of NFTs and blockchain technology
• How to incorporate gamification into distribution

The technological ecosystem of tourist accommodation is not homogeneous. Depending on the type of establishment, the number of beds, the market niche it addresses, the category or distribution channels, among many other variables, each hotel, chain, hostel, aparthotel or vacation rental home will demand certain or other solutions to optimize your resources, maximize your income and increase your profitability.

Don't give up the basics

Obviously, there are some basics that are practically impossible (and not recommended) to give up. If you aspire to sell online directly, at a minimum you will need a website and a booking engine. This is, without a doubt, the first step. But only that, no more, no less. From there, the concept of “need” is relative.

As specialists in direct sales, at Paraty Tech we know well what other resources are supposed to contribute to boosting direct bookings. But above all, we have always defended that technology is the means, not the end, and we will never recommend arming yourself to the teeth without properly justifying the usefulness of implementing certain tools. Strategy rules.

The crux of the matter

And that is precisely what this article is about. Today we want to analyze the importance (or not) of relying on a rate shopper to guarantee the correct application of your pricing policies in all your distribution channels. Whatever your objective, the current distribution of your sales share and the percentage relationship between your intermediated sale and your direct sale. That is, does your hotel distribution need a price intelligence platform like Price Seeker v4?

Below, we present different examples of possible variants of hotel distribution, explaining their particularities and trying to answer the question posed in each case.



Your distribution depends mainly on Booking, you need to get to the details. It is essential to know what rates Genius is applying, the latest rooms available, the cheapest rates, etc. All this information is offered to you by Price Seeker v4, helping you throughout the process.



You have a very varied distribution and it is very difficult for you to control all these channels and give them the attention they deserve. With Price Seeker v4 you can do it. We monitor more than 200 distribution sites, including dynamic package sales channels and tour operations.



Your hotel depends largely on third parties, which requires greater analysis of these distribution channels and, in addition, your main reservations come from tour operators or vacation packages. Price Seeker v4 monitors your competition on these channels so that you don't miss even the slightest difference.



Direct sales are the means by which you are receiving the most income and, of course, you want to keep it that way. Price Seeker v4 not only helps you keep this happening, but it also helps you manage your channel better. Real Time Parity, Opportunity Cost, etc. You want to know more? Ask us!

Conclusion: a rate shopper, the best possible ally

As you can see, all roads lead to… Price Seeker v4 . There is no cat in the bag. The conclusion you must reach is that, regardless of the drawing that outlines your distribution, a rate shopper or a price intelligence platform, is undoubtedly one of those basics that we alluded to in the first lines of the article. What may vary is the use you make of this tool, as well as the indicators that are most relevant to your establishment.

But control your prices and those of your competition throughout your distribution network, know the opportunity cost of your disparities and the evolution of your parity index, do not lose sight of the commercial strategies of the OTAs or know the general state of the position in which you work, is essential. This is unquestionable.

At Paraty Tech we know that not all hoteliers have the same needs. That's why we have reinvented the concept of rate shopper. Price Seeker has mutated into a comprehensive price intelligence platform and is now marketed through three different packages (Professional, Advanced and Enterprise). Starting from just €49 per month, they go from less to more in terms of the volume of data they include and contribute.

Do not hesitate to contact us for further information. We also invite you to try Price Seeker. It's as simple as filling out a short form and we will provide you with a 14-day Free Demo. Quick and easy.

A new way to book

The first hotel in which it will be possible to verify the result of the integration between the Paraty Tech booking engine and Hotelverse will be the Amare Beach Hotel Ibiza by Amare Hotels , belonging to Fuerte Group, which has already created its digital twin and will be operating soon.

That technology advances by leaps and bounds is unquestionable. But in this process, first there are those who open the way, and then those who take advantage of the clear path to follow the marked path. Hotelverse is undoubtedly part of the first group. In fact, they have achieved something as complicated as creating a solution that, in some way, represents a reinvention of the wheel of hotel reservations. A new dimension of direct sales from all possible sides. On the one hand, the guest will now be able to book exactly the room they want, through an immersive interface based on a digital twin of the establishment, which will allow them to move around the facilities practically as if they were there . On the other hand, it will change the traditional way of making revenue, by enabling the option of setting prices by specific room number , instead of doing so by the usual types or categories.

For its part, Paraty Tech , a company with more than 10 years of experience, specialized in the development and implementation of technological solutions aimed at increasing direct hotel sales, has always been characterized by getting on the bandwagon of innovation. So it is not surprising that it has become one of the first booking engines in the market to integrate with them.

In the words of Fermín Carmona, CEO & Co-founder of Hotelverse , "if anything characterizes Paraty Tech it is its functionality and ease of use, essential requirements for us, as a brand and as a product promise". Paraty Tech continues, "complete its proposal to generate reservations with the digital twin, thus taking a giant step in technological transformation and sales conversion”. The Amare Beach Hotel Ibiza , belonging to the Amare Hotels (Fuerte Group) chain, has already planned its digital twin and will be the first establishment in the Paraty Tech client portfolio to implement Hotelverse in its reservation process. Fuerte Group is a clear example of direct sales at a national level, which has always been characterized by its innovative attitude, as Martin Aleixandre, Chief Commercial Officer , explains to us, for whom this initiative represents a new opportunity to continue differentiating itself and setting trends: "Anything that adds value in terms of direct sales and in relation to the guest experience, we value internally and try to implement it. Especially if it is a disruptive and useful solution, such as Hotelverse, with the peace of mind of having a partner like Paraty Tech, always ready to undertake any project or suggestion for improvement that we propose”. Gina Matheis, CEO and Co-founder of Paraty Tech is aware of the potential of this integration, especially for hotels and vacation resorts, where the location of the room can make a big difference : “ having the ability to decide to sleep on foot the beach, having views of the pool, being close to restaurants or far from the facilities for children, supposes a great differential value for the traveler, who will surely be willing to pay more in exchange for enjoying the power of choice and know exactly where your room will be located. In turn, hoteliers must understand that an integration of this nature will help them increase the price of certain rooms, the average ticket and the total revenue , paradoxically, also improving the accommodation experience of their guests, despite the probable increase in their bill. . With Hotelverse and Paraty Tech we all win ”.

Last Wednesday, September 28, we participated in the Online Conference The direct channel in the Islands: objective of maximizing income ; organized by the Acelera SME Office of Ashotel and Paraty Tech .

A morning in which we talked at length about hotel direct sales, together with our usual collaborators, Smart Travel News , and the Landmar Hotels tourist complex.

The day began with the presentation of our CRO, Daniel Sánchez Adarve , who focused on the keys to optimizing the direct channel; and continued with the use case of Landmar Hotels, with Francisco Quintero Rodríguez , Sales Director at Landmar Hotels , who presented the “Experience & Loyalty” initiative applied in the establishments.

Then we moved on to the discussion table moderated by Juan Daniel Núñez, Editor of Smart Travel News , made up of our CEO & Co-Founder, Gina Matheis , Francisco Quintero Rodriguez, Director of Sales at Landmar Hotels and Enrique Padrón Fumero , Director of Innovation at Ashotel.

Below, we leave you with an article that summarizes the most important points that were discussed and with the full video of the day.

How do you encourage hoteliers to opt for Direct Sales (DV)?

Gina mentioned that the Canary Islands are a different case from the rest of the national territory, due to the large number of tour operators (TTOO). I mentioned that selling directly does not mean eliminating the rest of the channels , although I am a faithful defender of direct sales, since TTOOs offer guarantees that are a good cushion.

Even so, a balance must be found between direct sales and tour operations. Canarian hotels are betting on direct sales according to the figures, but for it to work, they need: strategy, the best technology, knowledge and training, and investment in human resources and marketing.

Do you think the increase in Direct Sales is temporary or will it last?

Our CEO & Co-Founder recalled that during the months of the pandemic due to Covid-19, in the Canary Islands there has been a 40% increase in direct sales from hotel establishments, although it is true that we came from very low to compare (it did not exceed 20% of the share in the best of cases). He stressed that the data has improved and not only in the Canary Islands, but in all destinations. Clients and hotels have realized that they can operate by betting on direct sales .

What weight does Direct Sales have for Landmar Hotels?

Francisco Quintero Rodriguez, Sales Director at Landmar Hotels, commented that direct sales are just another client. For Landmar Hotels, intermediaries are fundamental, they are a showcase, they give visibility. The billboard effect also reaches tour operations. He commented that direct sales have a high cost when it is the first customer, when loyalty is established that cost drops. Even so, they are committed to direct sales since that client becomes theirs, they speak directly with him, but for Landmar Hotels, tour operations are important.

From what point is Direct Selling profitable?

After Francisco's intervention, Gina confirmed his words, arguing that direct sales require investment in human resources and online marketing, which, without control, can become a bottomless pit. He recalled the importance of keeping Direct Selling costs below 15%, since if not, it will not be profitable. Furthermore, he added, intermediary channels also generate traffic to the direct channel, and if the hotel is not properly distributed, high occupancy will not be achieved only through the official website.

What new technology or technologies could be most important to enhance Direct Sales and what is the degree of digitalization of Canarian hotels?

Enrique Padrón Fumero, Director of Innovation at Ashotel, recalled that the competition is fierce and the Canary Islands are a unique place due to their isolation . They are in a medium or advanced state of digitalization, and they know that it is easier for large companies, while small companies feel overwhelmed by the excess of information and solutions. He admitted that he could not stay with a specific technology, since each company is a world and each business model must find a way to function in its environment. More than technology, it is also about people. They are in the process of transformation, of continuous improvement and from Ashotel they want to contribute their grain of sand. To do this, they are trying to get in touch with those who design the instruments and gather the needs of the companies. I mentioned that the Digital Kit entails a slow process, but little by little it is arriving.

How do you approach the choice of tools for Direct Selling and how do you manage them?

It is key to optimizing staff time, according to Francisco. They rely on well-integrated technologies, which help them make future forecasts. They work with test banks, test environments, to implement strategies and see if they work. He said that there is no better advisor than experience: it is important to analyze everything and for the team to assume any tool they implement.

Is there any technology that you have installed and have seen that has impacted Direct Selling?

Francisco commented that they have implemented an RMS that allows them to control a series of business rules to differentiate by channel, and thus, favor Direct Selling from the management of the rest of the channels. An important decision that has brought peace of mind to the team and the automation of processes.

From Ashotel, what do you do to train hoteliers in this type of technologies?

Enrique highlighted that Ashotel has a training department in full transformation , it is digitalizing to improve its training model and make it more versatile . In addition, throughout the year they hold around 50 conferences/webinars on technological, regulatory, operational, etc. dissemination. Many of them, related to Direct Sales. Between the training program and the dissemination through these sessions, they cover a good dissemination of all these subjects. On the other hand, they have stable business support programs (SME acceleration office, digital challenges program, intelligence, competitiveness and sustainability observatory) to capture and organize all the information in the sector and turn it into a valuable service.

Talent crisis, to what extent can it affect when finding profiles? Have you noticed it?

Enrique commented that there is demand for this type of profiles, hence they want to adapt the training offer, but they have the feeling that the market is finding the profiles it is looking for .

For Francisco, these profiles are arriving, although it is becoming more and more complicated, but they are very technologically oriented profiles, a very positive factor for the line of personal and company development. In the services part, he commented that it is becoming much more difficult to find the right candidates.

In the case of hotels on the islands, is there a standard for that distribution mix?

Strong response from Gina, who stated that there is never a standard, you have to look at each product: typology, location, number of rooms. Although he recommended developing a global Direct Selling strategy, online and offline, which must be part of the business culture, differentiating 3 fundamental elements: website, voice and interns (who are disappearing due to current last-minute reservations through the mobile).

Gina reminded that they must also be accompanied by the in-house strategy. Since, once the client enters the hotel, it is no longer TUI, Booking, etc. It is your client and you must redirect their next stays to the official website. Through information, through staff, through Internet access that requires going through the web... It is a transversal strategy of all departments that combines technology and HR.

At Paraty Tech they think that there is no common strategy and that direct selling is not an exact science. They believe in trial/error. You have to test based on the trends shown by the establishment to identify which channels convert and, then, it is essential to measure and rely on the data to make decisions.

You have made an important commitment to the voice. There was talk of Siri, Alexa, etc. but it turns out that no, it is the traditional call center that prevails. Results?

The CEO of Paraty Tech stated that the results, to date, are very satisfactory. They try to implement human2human, people2people. Since there are still many guests who prefer to talk to a person , and many hotels do not have the necessary investment capacity to implement their own call center. Hence, they have opted for this line of business, incorporating qualified personnel, focused on conversion, who knows how to provide adequate attention, including interacting with technologies such as a CRM, which will help offer the client, in real time, what they know they need. likes.

Do you think there will be a strong balance towards mobile reservations?

The Director of Innovation at Ashotel, Enrique, said that it is something that is already happening, that it is a latent and obvious change for years. And he warned: anyone who is not adapting will be losing an interesting sales quota.

Francisco, in fact, confirmed that they have more mobile reservations (60%) than desktop reservations (40%).

Does this trend affect Direct Sales more or does it also happen in intermediary sales?

A tactic that the Sales Director of Landmar Hotels commented on is the ability of intermediaries to introduce discounts that were not seen in desktop versions and greatly influenced mobile reservations. Currently, they still see it on OTAs, but they can also apply this practice on the web. The intermediaries that use it make it very difficult to detect disparities, which has caused mobile phones to become a flight of reservations to other channels.

How does the customer face this price difference, not only between channels, but between devices?

Gina commented that Paraty Tech is undertaking developments mainly by and for mobile phones, due to the increase they are seeing in reservations through these devices. No one is surprised anymore by these price differences by channel, device, which can be said to be even part of the travel booking culture. To the point that Paraty Tech is investing in integration with the Whatsapp API to be pioneers in this sense , and Whatsapp is an almost exclusive mobile app, although it has a desktop version. The objective is for the confirmation to reach WhatsApp directly.

For Enrique, this would constitute a great step, the solution, since many travelers have the habit of downloading the reservation from email and sending it to WhatsApp.

Does it make more sense for WhatsApp to develop more features instead of other applications emerging?

Francisco is clear about it and stated that they are implementing WhatsApp a lot for communications with clients and that is where they believe the shots will go. Everyone has WhatsApp and it is logical that this platform evolves.

What about the data? How do you get them? What weight do they have?

In Francisco's words, the basic idea is to capture a lot of data when the client is here and transfer it to the CRM. Surveys per stay, but also surveys for cancellation of reservations, with the aim of being able to respond and build loyalty even after a cancellation. Let's not harass. We customize and get to the point. The key is data and optimizing resources .

For his part, Enrique added that technology allows us to create that link that is being sought with loyalty . We all like to feel linked to the brand we like, those incentives are what technology will allow us to apply.

What are the chances of independent hotels and small chains creating a profitable loyalty program?

Gina recalled that obviously, the strategy is different for each product. Nobody doubts that the level of loyalty of a large chain has nothing to do with that of an independent hotel. You have to get the data, but also analyze it and know what to do with that data. It is not about collecting for the sake of collecting. He also commented that it is essential to have a good CRM that organizes all this information. They are working on detecting repetitive customers on the web to channel them towards loyalty clubs, which more and more hotels are implementing. It speaks, beyond the traditional ones, of clubs designed to offer different services adapted to the needs of each type of client.

Should we opt for more direct communication channels with the customer, beyond cookies and so on?

We have the voice there, right? More direct than that... They were Gina's words. The tools collect public information and automate tasks that were previously done manually. As long as the information is public, they will not have any problems accessing it. If you have exposed information, why can't it be compiled in a dashboard citing the source? Gina thus predicted a long life for web scraping.

The CRM, where would you place it within loyalty?

Enrique believed that it is vital and would place it in the center, understanding it as the key to everything. Both for the design of the product and the experience.

Francisco recalled the importance of this CRM data being accessible to anyone in the hotel, recognizing that what does work very well is the CRM at the level of the marketing strategy, but not so much at the hotel level, a field in which it is still They can improve a lot.

Apart from the economic benefit of Direct Selling, what other benefits does it provide?

The person in charge of Paraty Tech said that if managed correctly, with strategy, technology and investment, it is the channel that offers the highest profitability per occupation, offers commercial autonomy, increases customer satisfaction (more direct treatment), and is also , a generator of treasury and diversifies risk. The hotels that have traditionally been more tour-operated have suffered much more than the rest. He insisted on the importance of finding the balance between direct and intermediated sales, and from there, focusing on increasing the Direct Sales share.

How is the season expected in the Canary Islands?

The Sales Director at Landmar Hotels is positive. In this sense, he commented that they have done prior work that is leading them to have a positive pickup rate. He recalled that they live in a bubble with few competitors in winter and are very positive about the immediate future , although it is true that the advance booking period has been reduced (the long term now does not exceed 2 months). They continue to have a high cancellation percentage (30%, 10 points more than usual) and average stays have also been reduced. This implies that they need more reserves, more fundraising potential. Landmar Hotels pays a lot of attention to segmentation. Families, for example, go on specific vacation dates, with a greater advance notice of purchase, etc.

The Importance of Having a Loyalty Program

The goal of this innovative and technological loyalty program, designed in collaboration with Paraty Tech, is to reward guest commitment, build community, and understand the travel habits of the hotel chain's customers. This aims to continually tailor their offerings to match the preferences and needs of their guests.

After a successful summer season, the thematic hotel chain Casual Hoteles has kicked off autumn with a significant innovation: the launch of the BeCasual Club, its revamped loyalty program, whose new version has been designed in collaboration with its key technological partner, Paraty Tech.

This is a groundbreaking proposal, much like the Valencia-based company itself, including very unique differential services that add significant value to its members, fostering a sense of belonging and community.

Because, according to Juan Carlos Sanjuán, president and founder of Casual Hoteles, this is one of their main objectives, "to deeply understand the guests staying in our establishments, allowing us to continuously adapt our offerings to their tastes and needs."

This sentiment is shared by Daniel Sánchez, Chief Revenue Officer of the technology firm, who adds that this club exemplifies their "ability to adapt to the needs of each establishment or chain, as it has been designed from scratch, 100% tailored to a client who continually pushes us to join their innovation journey."

So, in addition to generating benefits from minute 0, despite its free nature, as users receive 5 euros for free upon registration, redeemable for hotel reservations within the chain; users also enjoy other perks such as accumulating redeemable euros for every 10 euros spent on the group's website or receiving money as a birthday gift.

These perks are complemented by other details such as welcome gifts upon arrival, ranging from a 10% discount on accommodation reservations to extra services offered by the hotel, participation in several annual draws, and the option for a late check-out, subject to availability.

A Scalable Program That Rewards Loyalty Like None Other

According to Juan Carlos Sanjuán, "the BeCasual Club stands out for being personalized, scalable, and flexible." In this sense, he explains, "it's a loyalty program designed to measure by Paraty Tech, our technological partner. It's very intuitive and is designed for both the end customer and our employees, who can benefit from all the advantages on equal terms." It's also scalable, he adds, "because it adapts the benefits to the level of commitment shown by each member, generating 3 categories: BeCasual (available with just registration), BeCasual Fan (for customers who have booked between 4 and 6 stays), and BeCasual Lover (from 7 stays onward)."

Finally, he concludes, "technologically it is very flexible, and that, internally, means that we can manage content and other functions autonomously and be very agile in creating new promotions. For example, in 2023, we plan to incorporate new benefits such as earning free euros for every friend BeCasual members successfully enroll in the program, and the possibility of converting accumulated points into charitable contributions, among other things."

BeCasual stands out for rewarding its members from the get-go and for rewarding their loyal commitment with additional benefits

About Casual Hoteles

Casual Hoteles is a Valencia-based hotel company founded in 2013 by Juan Carlos Sanjuan with the aim of becoming the benchmark for thematic urban accommodations in Spain. All its hotels feature personalized decoration inspired by their locations and offer quality standards and central locations at affordable prices. They are fun, surprising, and provocative, making Casual Hoteles a disruptive chain that was recognized with the Hostelco Award for "Best Hotel Concept" in 2018.

The group also stands out for its strong social and environmental commitment through its own Code of Ethics and collaborations with NGOs such as Save the Children and Unicef, among others. Currently, Casual Hoteles has 22 hotels and 848 rooms in 11 cities in Spain and Portugal, of which 1 is owned, 15 are operated under a rental arrangement, and 6 are franchises.

Countdown to Price Seeker v4

Technology, like the needs of hotels, is in a process of permanent change. Business strategies, revenue, marketing, etc. They are almost exclusively based on data, and these, in turn, are like an entity with a life of its own that does not stop integrating new indicators, formulas, display formats and analytical variants, in response to the constant proliferation of the most varied requirements. by the professionals called upon to exploit them.

What in the past could have been an A, may now barely touch the pass, and the only valid path for tool developers is to adjust their cruising speed to that of this wheel that does not stop turning. Even more. Overcome it to be able to anticipate and overcome unexpected obstacles or sudden changes in direction.

Spoiler alert! We are going to reveal some details of the most recent episode in the history of Price Seeker, our rate shopper, and its mutation into a Comprehensive Price Intelligence Platform.

We like to define the next and imminent launch of Price Seeker v4, and that everyone understands it that way, more than as an evolution, as a true revolution of this product, flagship of our brand. This version, the most ambitious to date, has led us to rethink, even its categorization. And it is that, perhaps, the concepts of rate shopper and rate checker, already fall short.

A bit of background

Before getting into the matter, let's take a look back. It is important to know that Price Seeker arose from the concern of our own colleagues, revenue and account managers who felt the need to automate certain processes in order to carry out more exhaustive monitoring of the growing number of hotels they managed.

In other words, like so many other solutions that we have developed in-house, Price Seeker was originally conceived as a tool for internal use, an ally that would allow us to continue increasing direct sales from our clients through price control. , and those of its competitive set, in its distribution channels. It didn't take us long to realize its potential... The rest came alone, backed by an unwavering argument: if it's useful for us, it will also be useful for any hotel establishment, regardless of its degree of involvement with direct sales. A star was born and his role was none other than to monitor, generate and boost sales in the channels of greatest interest , whatever they were, according to the commercial strategy of each accommodation.

Throughout almost a decade of production, Price Seeker has passed through the hands of revenue managers from leading hotel chains and groups, such as Meliá, Barceló, Blue Bay, Eurostars, Iberostar, RIU, Fuerte or Best Hotels, which It certainly constitutes a guarantee of its reliability.

But it has been by identifying actions or discount programs implemented unilaterally by the large OTAs, to the detriment of the interests of the hotels, when it has hit the table. For example, the detection of the Booking Early Payment Benefit comes to mind, even before its arrival in Spain. Expedia would later follow in his footsteps and, once again, the exclusive was carried out by our tool.

Price Seeker v4, what's new mate?

Now yes, we leave the past behind, we place ourselves in the present and look to the future. As we already mentioned, Price Seeker v4 is the definitive twist. A (r)evolution attacked from all possible sides. From the redesign of the UX, to the implementation of a wide range of brand new functionalities, through the inclusion of new indicators, a vocabulary and a more "hotel friendly" nomenclature, up to three different packages and the possibility of contracting and starting it. directly online. All this, focusing on the management of the establishment, but, above all, on its profitability. Let's see it in detail.

• User Experience : We won't dwell too long on this point. Just to say that we have listened to you and we will continue to do so. We are taking note and the new look & feel will reflect this. In any case, the best thing you can do is try it. By the way, we are going to launch a Price Seeker Beta Testers campaign. Do you want to be part of "The Chosen Ones"? Stay tuned.


• Monitoring of the vacation package / flight + hotel : One of our main objectives is to grow hand in hand with projects in which the flight + hotel is of vital importance. Price Seeker v4 monitors the competitiveness of hotels in more than 200 distribution points, including tour operators and highly relevant platforms, such as Jet2Holidays or TUI. Remember that we work with hotels in multiple destinations, so we can apply this criteria to any channel with which you may be interested in making comparisons.


• Control of disparities taken to the highest level :
  • You will receive real-time alerts of disparities in the direct channel, identifying as priority those with a high probability of abandonment .
  • Price Seeker v4 indicates the opportunity cost , because it is not the same to know that you have disparities, than to know the real cost that they imply for you in each channel.
  • Specific dashboards for hotel chains.
  
  
• Competition : detection of functionalities and promotions, including aspects such as the "last available rooms".


• Market data : online reputation of the destination, prices of the place, tour operators, flights...


• And also : all the advantages of a pricing tool aimed at providing information in an agile and reliable manner, but with a degree of detail prepared to satisfy the highest levels of demand:
  • Competition monitoring.
  • Parity monitoring.
  • Maximum reliability and solidity of the data, supported by screenshots.
  • Personalized alert system.
  • Competition and parity report generator.
  • Events and notes.
  • Daily updates.
  • Selection of your competitive set.
  • Free setup.
  • Free personalized training.
  • Online support.

Up to here we can read... Follow us on our usual communication channels to be aware of new steps. Price Seeker v4 is coming very soon .

We celebrate 10 years in Portugal

As we have already commented on more than one occasion throughout 2022, this is a year that is giving us many reasons to be very proud. After a decade of experience, at Paraty Tech we wanted to celebrate this milestone with our clients, partners and friends, holding a series of events that have served, above all, to thank them for their support, trust, and loyalty.

If on June 9 we convened in Malaga, more specifically, in the mythical Baños del Carmen, in what ended up being a party full of emotions and good memories, on September 15 we did the same in Portugal. The place chosen was the Hotel NAU Sao Rafael Atlántico , belonging to NAU Hotels & Resorts, one of the first chains that opted for Paraty Tech when we decided to start our journey through Portuguese lands. A location, therefore, charged with symbolism for us, which undoubtedly contributed to raising the level of emotion of the meeting.

Being able to organize something like this implies many things. It means that we are still in the market, that when we decided to bring our services and our collaboration model to the neighboring country, because we were clear that we had a lot to contribute here, we were not wrong. It also means that the team has done and continues to do a great job , also in terms of loyalty, because the company has grown, of course, but, above all, the Portuguese delegation, led by its Country Manager, Diana Costa, has managed to relationships with clients are becoming closer and closer, in many cases exceeding the strictly professional scope, forming solid teams in which the borders of the supplier-hotel relationship are increasingly blurred.

Show-cooking, a cocktail of height, cake with candles and sparklers, broadcast of videos, speeches of thanks, reunions, anecdotes, laughter... Everything that could be expected from the party was more than fulfilled.

Words from our CEO, Gina Matheis

Throughout 10 years many things happen and it is difficult to choose between so many anecdote, challenge, victory, etc. However, there is no doubt that our CEO, Gina Matheis, has a very special memory of the first reservation that came through our booking engine, at the hands of a Dutch family that she says will always be remembered. This is how he wanted to convey it to all the attendees in his thank you speech, highlighting the nerves that invaded his body while he made sure that the reservation was well priced. He also took the opportunity to recall that Portugal is the first great success story of our international expansion process, thus opening the door to other markets, such as Latin America, with the peace of mind of knowing that our model and our strategy do not understand countries or borders. .

The fragment of her speech dedicated to Diana Costa deserves a special mention, who practically in tears listened carefully to how Gina was full of praise for her work and her management, elevating our Country Manager Portugal to the position of main architect of the place she occupies currently Paraty Tech in Portugal, generally recognized as one of the best booking engines on the market .

The round of interventions was completed by Diana herself, in charge of opening the event and welcoming attendees, and Sancha Pina, Marketing & CRM Executive of NAU Hotels & Resorts.

Awards Ceremony

Finally, as the culmination of the celebration, an awards ceremony took place in which we wanted to reward good work in different plots of some of the establishments with which we collaborate. Everyone picked up their smiling statuettes, posing proudly for the photo, and showing their appreciation for the recognition of their work:

• Most Innovative Client Award - NAU Hotels & Resorts
• Direct Sales Leader Award - Hotel Dom José
• Loyalty Club Award - AP Hotels & Resorts
• Direct Sales Progression Award - Luna Hotels & Resorts
• Melhor Hotel Distribution Award - Ecork Hotel

Paraty Tech at the Innova 2030 Urban Agenda Conference

Last Friday, September 9, the Urban Agenda Innova 2030 Conference was held in Torremolinos. It is an agenda in which the town sets specific goals to achieve the objective of becoming a more sustainable, fair, intelligent and balanced city by the year 2030.

Our CEO & Co-Founder, Gina Matheis, participated in the second round table organized for the occasion, together with Javier Hernández, Executive Vice President of Aehcos (Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol), to talk about Tourism, Commerce and Digitalization , moderated by Ignacio Lillo, editor of Diario Sur .

During the morning, there was extensive talk about digitization in the tourism sector, focusing on the city of Torremolinos, emphasizing a key fact: the role of the tourism sector , a pioneer in its digital transformation through the incorporation of technological platforms.

"Digitization should help solve needs in an easy and useful way" , are the words of Gina Matheis, who insisted on the importance of promoting initiatives that favor the application of digitization techniques in the city's commerce sector.
Everyone knows that the pandemic has unexpectedly and abruptly accelerated the digitization processes. Nowadays, we do any management with the mobile. A reality that forces us to promote the use of digital supports in the tourism sector, being clear that their contribution is decisive for the increase in direct hotel sales.

For his part, Javier stressed the need for the hotel sector and the destination to work together to sell more and offer more and better information.
On the other hand, Gina recalled the importance of always having the hotel's official website ready, a channel of growing importance due to the distrust that the closure of various agencies has generated in the tour operation in recent months. The traveler, in the event of any incident with the reservation, can contact the hotel directly and resolve it, which translates into a great opportunity in terms of loyalty.

Ignacio Illo, moderator of the table, asked what was the current degree of digitization of the Costa del Sol , to which Gina responded by recalling how well prepared the hotels on the coast are thanks to the use of a complete technological mix: pms, booking engines, chat bots, etc. Nevertheless, he highlighted that there is always room for improvement and that work is being done actively in this area:

“It is about technology optimizing processes, so in hotels people will dedicate themselves to people”
Gina Matheis

Regarding the overcrowding of the city, Javier commented on the problem that coexistence between the resident and the tourist staying in holiday apartments constitutes. Today, with digitization, it is even easier to migrate an apartment to the vacation rental format and get it booked. Therefore, new proposals should be put forward to regulate this situation and promote a peaceful and sustainable coexistence between the different parties. He also highlighted the need to work together with Urban Planning to alleviate the overcrowding of destinations.

Gina Matheis gave some ideas on how to combat the consequences of overcrowding with simple actions: warning of traffic to avoid traffic jams, reporting queues at a certain monument/experience, even offering a lower price during "dead" hours are some examples. In addition to promoting other types of tourism , such as sports, cultural or gastronomic and attracting travelers outside the summer season of sun and sand. In this sense, it was emphasized that Torremolinos has much more to offer than just sun and sand and that this offer could contribute to the seasonality of the destination, thus avoiding overcrowding from June to September.

“The hotel floor of Torremolinos is reformed, passing the majority of the hotels to be 4*”
Gina Matheis

Both Javier and Gina agreed that the heart of the Costal del Sol can attract higher quality tourism. With a well-kept hotel base and most of the establishments renovated, Torremolinos can afford not to lower prices and not be tempted to attract budget tourism.

The CEO of Paraty Tech also recalled that before lowering the price of the establishment due to the lack of reservations, the reason must be carefully studied, understanding the demand and the cause of not reaching the objectives. Lowering prices is easy, but unfortunately, this step will lead us to attract a tourist profile that the city is not interested in. Javier added that the municipality and the hotel must be on the same page in order to improve the attractiveness and general perception of the Torremolinos destination.

“Talk more about the cost of the impact of the real tourism activity than about the number of overnight stays”
Javier Hernandez

Traditional markets will change the perception of destinations and improve the visitor's profile.
Another topic addressed was the possible digital divide that may exist in the municipality. In this sense, Gina Matheis stressed the need for the City Council to promote training in technology. Paraty Tech develops user-friendly tools, but it is true that even if they are intuitive, training must be increased so that users have at least a basic starting level.

Also, it must be taught that the digital environment is a trustworthy environment , as Javier commented, so that these people feel safe when using the different tools.

Finally, they spoke of the uncertainty that seems to reign in the face of autumn and, although they stated that due to factors such as inflation, the war between Ukraine and Russia, or the Breixit situation, we will experience this time of year with more anxiety than usual Gina recalled that national tourism is giving very good results and that current trends indicate a predominance of last-minute reservations in the international market.

They ended by talking about next year and expressing their optimism, predicting a probable increase in reserves in Spanish territory due to the foreign context.
Thus concluded a morning of presentations in which ideas, improvements and projects were shared to continue making Torremolinos a tourist destination of 10 .

Marketing, like cotton, doesn't deceive. For every unit of currency invested, you receive "x" units of return. It's that simple. Obviously, the goals of such investment can be many and varied, and quantifiable to a greater or lesser extent. You can aim for greater visibility, increased brand awareness, or an increase in the number of bookings in the strict sense, to name three common examples. In short, and pardon the insistence on this matter, the strategy, as in any field, should always be the starting point, setting the tone and guiding, when it comes to reading and interpreting the results.

Investment vs. Expense

It never ceases to amaze us that there is so much talk of "investing" in stocks, in housing, or even in gambling, and yet we tend to talk about "spending" on marketing. The stock market, real estate, cryptocurrencies, or the gambling market are much more volatile and unpredictable than the digital marketing space in which hotels operate.

No one assures you that you will get a return when you buy stocks, purchase a house, or bet on a team or athlete to win a game (unless we're talking about Real Madrid or Rafa Nadal, of course). These activities have earned the right to be labeled as "expenses" or, at the very least, "risky," due to the lack of certainties surrounding them.

On the contrary, hotel digital marketing can only be understood as an "investment" because, properly managed, with a good strategy, it always yields benefits.

Let's go with the 7 myths

Talking to customers and actively listening to the industry in general provides valuable information. This is how we have compiled the most common reasons hotels give when justifying their reluctance to have a presence on metasearch engines or to activate paid campaigns.

What worries hoteliers so much and holds them back? What are their arguments for not wanting to be present? What makes them doubt the suitability of advertising on Google Ads? And, alternatively, why do they insist on putting a cap on the budget allocated to these platforms? Below is a list that we have called "Goals, Myths, and Certainties."

If I hadn't invested, I would have sold the same


The favorite excuse of the non-empirical, those who measure the direction and intensity of the wind by licking their index finger, pointing it to the sky, and winking for precision. It is a recurring argument among utopian, idealistic hoteliers, who may not be wrong in thinking that they would have sold the same, but are wrong in assuming that these sales would have come through the direct channel.

We often counter this argument by pointing out that more than 70% of travelers use metasearch engines to look for accommodation. Not investing in them is equivalent to not being there, and not being there gives too much advantage to their competitors and, above all, to OTAs, which do dedicate huge amounts of money to improving their positioning on metasearch engines and search engines.

In summary, not investing in SEA and metasearch engines doesn't necessarily mean selling less, but it will drastically reduce the weight of direct sales in favor of intermediated sales.



Commissions are too high, and my direct selling costs skyrocket


Again, a very biased reading. Too high compared to what or whom? Compared to not selling? Compared to OTA commissions? Let's revisit the topic of strategy here.

The goal of digital marketing investment is to ultimately sell more, that's clear. But you can't go from A (investing) to B (selling more) all at once. There are many intermediate steps, hundreds of details to take care of.

Proper and responsible management of metasearch engines inevitably involves bid optimization. Obviously, it is essential for the hotel to do its homework and have its prices controlled and well-worked. Then, with proper monitoring, surprising results can be achieved. For example, we have managed to reduce certain clients' commission from 10% to 5%, without compromising their visibility, positioning, or sales. If anything, the opposite.

We are talking about a reduction of 5 percentage points from the commission that is understood on that platform.



I can't afford to spend so much


If someone you trust completely told you that for every euro you give them, they will give you back three, wouldn't you find a way to get euros even from under the stones? Well, this is more or less the same. That someone is us, your trusted provider, your strategic partner. We share interests and goals because our work is based on a win-win model, meaning we only eat if you eat.

And we'll tell you something... We still don't know of any case where the hotel lost money as a result of its investment in digital marketing. It may not have received the expected return initially, perhaps. But losing money, definitely not. In fact, for informational purposes, the ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) we generate for our clients ranges between €10 and €30 per euro of investment.



Current metasearch engines don't convert for my hotel


We can understand if you have doubts about which metasearch engine (or engines) is more convenient for your establishment. And there is no definitive metasearch engine, anyone who says otherwise is lying.

What does exist are your audiences, your main source markets, your preferred segments, and, once again, your goals and needs. And, based on all these variables, it will be easier to define your ideal mix. But it's not up to you to do it; that's what we're here for.



The CPC bidding model is a waste of money


Just as it happens with the choice of metasearch engines, the bidding model to choose is closely linked to strategy.

For example, in Google Hotel Ads, undoubtedly, CPA Guest Per Stay is the most popular model, partly due to the pandemic, during which the cancellation rate rose to unprecedented levels.

Other metasearch engines, like Tripadvisor, have also adopted this model, which guarantees the hotel only pays for materialized reservations. Their minimum commission is 10%, but one week is enough to know if this bidding model is profitable or if it is better to opt for CPC. To understand it better, the commission for a €2000 reservation in France will be €200. However, if we detect that this market has a low CPC, high demand, and competitive pricing, we might end up paying only €56 to get that reservation.

That's why we insist that the decision to opt for one bidding model or another will be conditioned by numerous factors: having a competitive price, average ticket, average length of stay... Still, with a good reading and interpretation of the data, we will never talk about wasting money.



Free booking links are enough; it's not worth paying


As Google integration partners, the moment you start working with us, your hotel will appear directly in Google's Free Booking Links, and this, like everything else, adds up. But thinking that it's enough is going too far. Let's think from Google's perspective... Wouldn't it be shooting themselves in the foot to create a free feature that undermines one of their current most important sources of income?

Behind this initiative is simply the intention to have the highest number of data possible, the highest number of connected hotels, which has a very positive impact on the reliability of the results they offer and also promotes the transition of these hotels to their paid advertising models.

But Free Booking Links always appear below paid results (see screenshot). That is, their visibility is limited. However, appearing well-positioned in them reinforces the belief that a hotel that has a good organic ranking is really a good option, beyond the position it occupies as a result of its investment.

Do Free Booking Links contribute? Without a doubt. Are they enough? Not at all.



My hotel is too small / urban / boutique to invest in digital marketing


And is it not too small to be on Booking? This argument, very common, is also one of the most common mistakes. Again, a matter of strategy.

Just as depending on the type of marketing, distribution, and management you apply, you will be interested in some technological tools or others, depending on the segment, the type of establishment, or the size, some channels will be more appropriate than others, and the investment will also adapt to those circumstances.

Your hotel may be very special and well-positioned for a certain market niche, but far from being a reason not to invest, it can be the best argument to do so. Less competition and better positioning also mean needing less investment to achieve fantastic results. We cannot forget that everyone competes in their league, and some leagues are more demanding than others.

It is not equally easy to become a professional football player, something that millions of people in our country aspire to, as it is to become one, for example, in badminton, a less popular sport, where you will probably find less competition.

And now, some certainties

Metasearch engines and digital marketing, in general, help you boost your direct sales at the expense of intermediated ones. However, as the saying goes, a shoemaker to his shoes. It is essential to have a partner that:

Gets involved from the beginning, actively participating in the strategy definition phase. Maintains "good relationships" with the platforms. At Paraty Tech, we are Google integration partners, Tripadvisor Premium Partners, and we work with the most powerful tools. Carries out daily monitoring and analysis of the evolution and status of campaigns. Converts what you understand as an expense into an investment within a reasonable period.

This way, we know for sure that it is possible to:

• Optimize / reduce investment


• Optimize / reduce commission


• Identify new markets


• Discard channels / bidding models


• Maximize return

We design websites, integrate the booking engine, and provide you with multiple price control and revenue management tools. But this is just the first step. We are also your partner for managing digital marketing. If you want to know more about Paraty Digital Suite and Paraty Metas, contact your account.

On Thursday, June 9th, Paraty Tech celebrated its 10th Anniversary. An event designed not only to mark a decade of achievements but also to express gratitude to those who have contributed to our success: the hotels and other tourist accommodations we collaborate with. The evening exceeded all expectations, with a perfect setting, a relaxed atmosphere, and magical weather.

The sun, an impromptu protagonist

The chosen venue was El Balneario, at Baños del Carmen, a location known for offering some of the city's best sunsets. The sun became an impromptu protagonist, not only for shining as usual in Malaga almost year-round but also because Daniel Romero's opening speech revolved around this star, stating, "In addition to giving its name to our planetary system, the solar system, and to our coast, the Costa del Sol, it is at the very center of the activity we develop."

Paraty Sunglasses, our new corporate symbol

In line with this theme, it's no surprise that the gift chosen by the team for attendees was personalized sunglasses, a new distinctive element of Paraty Tech's corporate identity. These sunglasses now carry symbolism beyond their material value as merchandise. In a "Caiga Quien Caiga" style, our communication manager invited everyone to wear them during his speech, where he acknowledged the challenges faced by hotels over the past two gray and cloudy years, praised their extraordinary resilience, thanked them for their unwavering commitment to our technology, and gave them a well-deserved applause.


Paraty Sunglasses

Gina Matheis, emotion, and professionalism

One of the most anticipated moments was the appearance of Gina Matheis, Co-founder and CEO of the company, likely its most visible face. And she didn't disappoint. Gina added an emotional touch by recalling the origins of Paraty Tech, sharing anecdotes about proposing the idea to her brother Franz (Co-founder and CTO), the origin of the company's name, the first reservation from Hotel Puente Real, and how establishments like Gran Hotel del Coto and Hotel Pradillo Conil trusted their word. "None of this would have been possible without you," she concluded, announcing the projection of a video summary of Paraty Tech's journey.

The cherry on top: public entity support

The speeches concluded with two women who, despite their busy schedules, not only attended but also spoke to us. A gesture for which we will always be grateful.

We're talking about Margarita del Cid, Mayor of Torremolinos, and María Rosa Sánchez Jiménez, Deputy Mayor Delegate for Tourism and City Promotion and Investment Attraction. Each, in her own style, emphasized the importance for Torremolinos and Málaga of having technology companies like ours, capable of completing a decade of activity, employing over a hundred people, and generating a sense of belonging, a group, almost a family feeling, despite Paraty Tech's exponential growth over the years. They congratulated the company founders and extended their congratulations to the entire team.

Awards ceremony: congratulations to the winners

The party continued, and people stayed with us, enjoying the positive atmosphere and the good relationships we always seek to build with our clients. As the night progressed, another highlight approached... the awards ceremony.

Our unique way of recognizing the excellence and loyalty of certain clients, without diminishing the efforts of others, was to present awards in six categories. Here are the recipients:

·Premio Honorífico en Agradecimiento a todo el Equipo
·Hotel Puente Real

·Premio a la Fidelidad
·Gran Hotel del Coto
·Hotel Pradillo Conil

·Premio al Hotelero Más Innovador
·ON Hotels

·Premio al Mayor Exponente de la Venta Directa
·Hotel Blaumar

·Premio a la Paridad de Precios
·Hotel La Barracuda

·Premio a la Mejor Progresión en Venta Directa
·Best Hotels

More External Collaborations Than Ever Fill the Pages of Issue No. 9 of En Línea

The first issue of En Línea in 2022, Issue No. 9 overall, is filled with external collaborations: Jaime Chicheri, Paloma Cambero, Miguel Eaktai, Santi Migueles, Elena Mateos... Unpublished articles and all the activity of Paraty World during the first quarter of the year.

The first quarter of the year has been intense. Between the opening of our new office in Cancun, our participation in countless events, the organization of Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit, and the launch of 75 new booking engines, we have barely been aware that four months of 2022 have already passed. When you enjoy what you do, time flies.

There is a significant change in this issue. A few months ago, we decided to open the doors to professionals from various tourism fields, giving them the opportunity to express themselves through an article on the topic they considered appropriate. On the one hand, this initiative adds even more value to the publication by including unpublished and exclusive content. On the other hand, it provides a showcase for multiple players visible to an audience of around 10,000 people, including social media, newsletters, blogs, and other usual communication channels.

As expected, many have taken up the challenge and provided us with truly interesting texts on economics, revenue management, direct sales, distribution, and more. We are very grateful to them and hope they benefit from their collaboration.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Feature: Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit


• Expert Insights: Economics, Revenue, Direct Sales, Distribution


• Paraty World Blog: Most Read Articles of the Last 4 Months


• Current Affairs: Other notable news from the first quarter of 2022


• New Websites and Engines: 36 new websites and 74 new engines in production


• Latest Features: Paraty Hotel Manager continues to add improvements


• Success Stories Series 1: VIK Hotels


• Paraty World Live: Return to the old normal

As always, you decide: read it online on our Issuu channel or download it to your device in PDF format to take it wherever you go.

READ ON ISSUU

DOWNLOAD PDF

GA4 time is coming

Some time ago Google announced the new version of Google Analytics 4 (hereinafter, GA4). However, it has not been until very recently when they have ventured to set and communicate the final date of this migration: on July 1, 2023 Google Analytics Universal (the one of a lifetime, hereinafter GAU) will stop processing data.

The first thing we want to do is invite you to calm down. If you work with us, you don't have to worry or do anything, because we are already on it and there is no possible data loss. In fact, in this article we will tell you the reason for the launch of this new version, the advantages that it brings with it and how we are managing this change of scenery that mainly addresses respect for privacy and the suppression of third-party cookies, a an issue that Chrome has promised to settle once and for all by the end of the year. Nothing will ever be the same again in terms of data analytics and marketing campaign attribution, and GA4 is nothing more than Google's response to a cookieless world, which threatens to steal its advantageous position and hegemony in this field.

Why Google Analytics 4?

Said bluntly, the traditional version, Google Analytics Universal, has become obsolete in its approach. Designed in a context in which the bulk of online traffic came mainly from web pages and desktop devices, its configuration had been designed to count independent sessions, and relied heavily on cookies to carry out its measurements.

Today, the user "travels" through the most varied platforms: web, mobile web, mobile apps, progressive web apps, single page applications... Therefore, the original approach, based on the concepts of "pages", "hits” and “sessions” began to make less and less sense. We could say that GA4 is an update that Google has been practically forced to undertake in order not to be left behind.

Main differences between GA4 and GAU

Two years ago, Google already saw the ears of the wolf and began to develop in GA4 a totally different approach to the one it had been working on, focused, on this occasion, on measuring the traffic of "web + apps", with the aim of offering a much more accurate reading of a user profile whose habits had changed radically.

The most relevant difference refers to a change in the measurement model . While GAU was always supported, as we said, on a model based on user sessions and the hits it generated (page views, events, transactions), GA4 is built around the events themselves . In fact, the event has been established as a unit of measurement , to the detriment of the concepts of "page" and "session", which are already meaningless due to the multiple current sources of Internet traffic, in which the event does allow carry out more effective measurements.

In addition, GA4 incorporates important advances in automatic learning (what is known as machine learning ), favoring much more reliable, precise and revealing predictions and conclusions .

As expected, this structural change is accompanied by a revamped interface , in which the data visualization model experiences a notable qualitative leap.

Summarizing:

• Events replace pages and sessions as the unit of measure.
• Incorporation of advances in machine learning.
• More reliable and accurate predictions and conclusions.
• Revamped interface.
• Qualitative leap in the data visualization model.

Advantages of Google Analytics 4

If Google had just responded to a problem, I think we would all have been pretty disappointed. Fortunately, this has not been the case, and GA4 also brings certain advantages over its predecessor:

• New prediction metrics, such as the probability that a user will convert or stop visiting us.
• Centralization and unification of the measurement of user behavior in web and app environments.
• Greater protection of user privacy.
• Better analysis of the behavior of individual users.
• More facilities to export to Big Query.
• New metrics for measuring user engagement or interaction with our website, such as scrolling, file downloads, etc.
• Easier to manage and measure custom events from GA4 itself.
• More facilities to correct and debug errors in measurements.

Obviously, not everything is rosy, and we could alarm you with certain disadvantages of GA4, which mainly address the discontinuity between the traditional measurement model and the new one. But the truth is that we are sure that they will be corrected soon and that the change, in global terms, will provide greater control over the behavior, habits and trends of our users and potential customers.

How are we proceeding at Paraty Tech?

• Raise awareness : We are investing efforts in highlighting the importance of configuring the GA4 to start recording data now, and have a history in the near future, when GAU stops recording or disappears forever.
• Accommodations with which we already worked : In those accommodations in which we already had the "Web+App" property active and configured, basically there is not much more to do, it could be said that they already have GA4. In those that we had not activated this property, we are gradually configuring a GA4 property, and we will maintain both versions for a recommended prudential period of time.
• New housings : Since GA4 was launched, in all the new housings with which we started to collaborate, the team is configuring both versions by default, GA4 + GAU, in order to enjoy the maximum measurement width while we have this option.

Until when will we have the information from GAU?

Although, as we announced at the beginning of these lines, Google Analytics Universal will cease to exist on July 1, 2023 , Google will continue to keep the historical data of each account for at least 6 more months from that date.

In any case, do not hesitate to tell us about any concerns that may arise in relation to this topic. Your assigned account and our experts will be happy to assist you.

• Discussion tables, presentations and networking, the keys to the Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit, the prelude to the Tourist Tianguis


• With the focus on Caribbean destinations, the event is free and has limited capacity

Hotels, hotel chains, technology providers and other players in the tourism sector come together in this free, virtual event with limited capacity organized by Paraty Tech. The first edition of Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit is already underway and will take place between April 21 and 22, 2022, between 09:00 AM and 02:30 PM GMT-5 (from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Spain).

The prelude to Tianguis Turístico

Organized by Paraty Tech , in collaboration with various companies and entities, this event was born with the intention of becoming the prelude to the next Tourist Tianguis, and puts the focus, therefore, directly on the Latin American market and, more specifically, on the Caribbean destinations. In the words of Daniel Romero, communications director of the technology company based in Torremolinos, «Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit constitutes the perfect opportunity to establish the first contact between hoteliers and technology companies, which will precede the face-to-face meetings that will take place only one month later in Tianguis Turístico.

" The perfect opportunity to establish the first contact between hoteliers and technology companies, which will precede the face-to-face meetings that will take place just a month later at Tianguis Turístico"

Daniel Romero, communications director, Paraty Tech

More than a day of webinars, a virtual fair

In this sense, its creators are keen to highlight that, although the event will have an enriching program of informative content, far from being just another day of webinars, it should be understood rather as a virtual fair in which the participants They will also have the opportunity to build a one-to-one short appointment agenda.

As Gina Matheis, CEO of the company, comments, "the idea at all times has been to create an environment in which to lay the foundations for future conversations and negotiations, while offering a 360º vision of the destinations in the area, based on the opinions and experience of large hotel chains and technology companies.

Paraty Tech, which has recently opened an office in Cancun, after more than 5 years operating in the Latin American market, seeks to become there, as Omar Guardia, Director of LATAM Expansion, tells us, "a technological reference and clear exponent of training and reactivation of the tourism sector”, involving as many players as possible.

Partners and collaborators

Not in vain, hotel chains such as Barceló Hotel Group, Hilton Hotels & Resorts and Karisma Hotels & Resorts, represented respectively by Jaume Vidal (Chief Revenue Strategy & AI in Revenue & Commercial Planning), Rodolfo Gómez (Director of Revenue Management) and Daniel Lozano (Vide President Operations), will take center stage in the two discussion tables of the event, which will take place on April 21 from 09:00 AM GMT-5.

Along with them, companies such as Beonprice, Hotelverse, Roibos, Sojern, Travel Tech, Ring2Travel, Turobserver, Wihp and Paraty Tech itself will complete the lineup of panelists at the tables and subsequent presentations.

Since last April 11, all interested people can register now for the event, begin to discover the rest of the participants and make their appointment schedule through the Sales & Tales Caribbean Hoteliers Summit website.

Gina Matheis , CEO of Paraty Tech , participated today, Thursday, April 7, in the Business Colloquium Table of "Málaga Next '2022: Meeting on digital transformation of tourism in Málaga" organized by the Málaga City Council. Joining her were Felix Zea , director and CEO of Ruralidays , Javier Mendoza , Strategic Sales & Partnerships Manager of CoverManager , and Boris Heister , CEO, CTO & Co-founder of Masteryield .



The table was preceded by speeches by the Mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre Prados , and Rosa Sánchez Jiménez , Deputy Mayor Delegate of Tourism, Promotion of the City and Attraction of Investments, in charge of presenting the new tourism website of the province and the new Malaga Smart Tourist Destination System, designed by and for the professional tourism sector, which will provide tourism indicators and analysis with the aim of facilitating decision making (it should be noted that Turobserver, a company of the Paraty World group , partially nourishes this platform by providing data, together with other entities).

For his part, Jorge Carulla , director of marketing and communication at TravelgateX , gave an interesting presentation on Digital Transformation .

«In addition to knowing how to handle data, we have to ensure that companies are prepared to know how to interpret it and take advantage of it»

These are the words of Don Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Málaga, who stated during his speech that "talking about digital transformation seems very appropriate" at this time, when Málaga is above the Spanish average in terms of digitalization in all sectors, not just tourism. However, he also stressed the importance of "knowing how to handle data and ensuring that companies are prepared to know how to interpret it and take advantage of it", in addition to ensuring that the data we have is really all that we need or that others are needed. He also referred to the reputation of the destination almost as an obsession with "knowing what those who visit us think and continuing to strive to be the best, the first." Not in vain, Malaga is the Spanish city with the highest number of tourist quality certificates for the destination, a condition that it valued very positively, although it clarified that "in the end, what matters to the client is having all the information to be able to plan properly." your visit". Finally, he said goodbye, hoping that the attendees "leave the event with renewed spirits to move forward in this direction, since it is the tourism sector that, to a greater extent, is lending its support to the economic and business reactivation of the city of Malaga."

«We have a world with new needs and we have to adapt to serve all people»

Jorge Carulla, director of marketing and communication at TravelgateX, began his presentation “Digital transformation from a human approach. Leadership and business culture as keys to success" providing very revealing data:

• Andalusia is the second region in the world that has received the most reservations in the last week and the first in Spain, with a growth of 20% compared to the previous week and more than 370% compared to 2019.

However, it also echoed the complexity of the current context, a VUCAH environment (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and hyperconnected), which leads us to face a "global panorama with new needs, in which we must adapt to "be able to provide service to all people." A statement that he completed by adding that “we have a complicated tourism sector because there are many players and we have to ensure that everyone connects in a simple way.

What is digital transformation and what factors cause it?

Darwin said that it is not the strongest that survive, but those that adapt best. With this quote he was referring to the importance of generating value, of helping the client, whose needs we sometimes forget, when in reality we should ask ourselves questions like "what am I going to solve for them, what headaches am I going to save them, what benefit?" "I'm going to contribute." He then listed precipitating factors for digital transformation, such as "customers, the economy, technology, competition, etc."

Pillars for the success of digital transformation

1. People

Above all, the people. He then used the words of Peter Drucker, who said that "culture eats strategy for breakfast", to emphasize that "culture must be aligned with the company's strategy, since it is people who drive digital transformation." ».


2. Strategy

The only valid strategy is to provide value. To do this, we must ask ourselves "why are we undertaking digital transformation, what type of digital transformation are we going to carry out, for whom and with whom." Therefore, unfortunately very common errors must be avoided at all costs:

I do it because yes | I do it because the competition does it | I do it because they asked me to | I do it without specifying | I do it without counting on people


3. Execution

According to him, this is the main challenge for all companies, and it involves people, data (that really help make decisions), knowledge, action, results and feedback.

Responsibility of companies and people: "When you point at someone, ask yourself how many fingers they are pointing at you"

The correct execution of a digital transformation process "improves efficiency, productivity, management, resilience, decision making, agility, commitment, etc." But it also entails possible "side effects, which always happen... in the end it is about the positive being above the negative", something in which the responsibility of companies and the people who make them up has a lot of weight:

• COMPANY RESPONSIBILITIES
  
• PDP
• Personal formation
• OKRs
• Culture and values
• Purpose
• Communication
• Agile and light structures
  
  
• RESPONSIBILITIES OF PEOPLE
• Sense of responsibility
• Focus on value
• Autonomy
• Communication

“Vision without execution is only a hallucination” Henry Ford

Gina Matheis opened the Business Discussion Table with this phrase from Henry Ford, thus answering the first question, related to the importance of information analysis. Once again, people and strategy came to the fore. Gina revealed that the first thing she asks her clients is "what their strategic plan is and if they have the time, money, training and people (most importantly) to execute it." Listen, in short. Because the reality, he added, is that we live in a "globalized world, in which not all information is useful for everyone and excess data is not good."

His fellow members expressed themselves along these same lines: While Boris Heister said that "it is useless to have too much data, nor to have people who do not know how to apply it, from the highest to the lowest of the business scheme", Felix Zea highlighted that "data is everything, but you have to know how to distinguish the important ones, what is happening now, but also see the evolution, because the needs have changed a lot," and Javier Mendoza concluded by emphasizing the importance of "its vocation for service original is not lost, it must be sent to all new additions, to differentiate useful data from that which is not.

But digital transformation processes are, without a doubt, a great challenge, and companies encounter barriers. One of them has to do, precisely, with the difficulty of business DNA remaining intact as teams grow and renew themselves. Something that, according to Gina, "is worked on from the first moment with each incorporation, since the team must feel the company as theirs and be able to transmit that culture." Not in vain, he continued, "in all the known success stories, everyone was very clear about how to do things."

For his part, the CEO and founder of Masteryield recognized that "uncertainties exist... and excess data is undoubtedly a barrier, but we must be able to move from big data to small data to satisfy the different information needs." In turn, Zea highlighted as the main challenges "the centralization and accessibility of data, and the humanization of technology or inclusive technology, which does not leave aside those who do not know or do not want to use it." A concept that Mendoza, from Covermanagers, exemplified very well when he revealed that "50% of reservations are online, but that the remaining 50% still arrive by phone or from people who are passing through", without ignoring the fact that "restaurants have gone from a poorly digitized profile to reaching a point where it is the restaurant itself (large, medium and small) that suggests ways of connection."

Maximum unanimity when addressing the issue of connectivity or the interconnection of tools to promote access to data and its correct application: there is still much to do and it is, undoubtedly, one of the great pending issues. Specifically, Matheis spoke of "non-existent fusion and obstacles when connecting, even though accumulating data, today, does not cost money", and, in contrast, Boris recognized the "challenge of responding to all requests of connection".

What is clear, and it is comforting that this is the case, is that although technology will always accompany us, the demand for personalized attention, at least in the short term, will cause us to understand technology as a complement and not as a substitute element. . The pandemic, among many other things, has taught us, according to the CEO of Paraty Tech, that "the need to be able to serve customers by telephone has grown, because people still like to talk to people." And he provided a curious fact, to say the least...Ring2Travel , his group's call center, was born in the middle of the pandemic and, since then, has maintained constant annual growth of around 50%. Boris Heister was convinced that "although digital transformation is here to stay, we must be able to continue welcoming guests with a smile."

What does the future hold?

We speak with entrepreneurs, not with visionaries. But everyone agrees in predicting a great summer season and, in general, a great year for tourism:

"I am very optimistic... Málaga is no longer behind, it has become an important technological hub, people want to live here, come here. We are going to have a very good year."
Gina Matheis

"Good prospects. Because it is a region in full growth, but also because of the opportunity to adapt to new trends."
Felix Zea

"Optimistic. We have survived, we have adapted. We can say that this has happened and we are looking forward to getting out. And if another problem comes, we will do it again."
Javier Mendoza

"People still want to travel. Malaga, Andalusia, Spain, are benchmarks. I am very optimistic if nothing more serious happens, and I predict a panorama of great challenges."
Boris Heister

Julián Alcolea, operations manager at Ring2Travel, and Cindy Johansson, project manager at Turobserver, participate in the forum “Optimizing the new tourism marketing”, organized by the AEDH within the framework of the H&T Hospitality Innovation Show”

Yesterday, February 7, the H&T Hospitality Innovation Show began which, for three days, has once again turned Fycma into a meeting point of reference at a national level for companies in the HORECA channel, the tourism industry and gastronomy. As it could not be otherwise, the AEDH Spanish Association of Hotel Directors was there, in what constituted another example of its unconditional support for hotels and the sector, in this 2022 in which, in addition, they celebrate their 50 years of activity.



Within the complete agenda of the event, the AEDH was in charge of organizing the forum "Optimizing the new tourist commercialization", inaugurated by its president Manuel Vegas , who made a brief tour of the work of the entity, stressing the determining role that the new generations play, present and future of the association.

For his part, Isidro Tenorio Meseguer , responsible for communication and events at the AEDH, was in charge of introducing the participants of the two round tables that made up the forum program, and in which we also had the pleasure of participating, for Double match. While Julián Alcolea , operations manager of Ring2Travel , appeared on the panel of the first one as a member, in the second it was Cindy Johansson , project manager of Turobserver, who joined the poster, with Julián adopting the role of moderator on this occasion .

Table 1: Latest trends in intermediation and marketing

After the opening ceremony, the first table began, moderated by Isidro Tenorio , and made up of Fernando J. Fraguas , director at Playa Miguel Beach Club & Aparthotel, Julián Alcolea , operations manager at Ring2Travel, and Carlos Rentero , director of Bookassist in Spain. and Latin America.

On the agenda, the latest trends in intermediation and marketing , within a context still marked by the pandemic, in which "we are faced with a guest who increasingly demands more, who goes far beyond the stay", as Fraguas affirmed, and in which "although direct sales have grown a lot, we must not lose sight of the income statement, which is what ultimately really interests the hotelier", as Rentero pointed out. For his part, Julián added that, more than ever, "the trend is towards putting the focus where the guest is, listening" and, in this sense, he referred to the voice "as a very powerful distribution channel".

"The trend is towards putting the focus where the guest is and, in this sense, voice is a very powerful distribution channel."
Julián Alcolea, operations manager Ring2Travel

Isidro then redirected the debate towards the trends within intermediation at the technological level , and launched the following question into the air: “Are we prepared for the “increased traveler”, the new traveler profile?”. The consensus in the responses of the guests was summed up in the central idea that technology without strategy is not effective . A statement that, somehow, took us to the famous slogan of a well-known brand of tires, when it said that uncontrolled power is useless. In this sense, Rentero also expressed himself by suggesting that "despite the fact that it is true that we are living in a moment of democratization of technology, we should not allow ourselves to be closed by it, since there is no technology that can fix a bad strategy."

Totally in agreement with this statement, Alcolea asserted that "there are clients who do very well in terms of direct sales and others who do very poorly, using the same technology, and those who have been surprised by the pandemic without having defined a strategy, at least five years from now, they have had a very bad time”. What does seem clear is that, for the OTAs, clear exponents of the effective use of technology, hotels are mere suppliers of raw material and the reality is that they allocate the bulk of their resources and developments to whoever is really interested, the customer. Along these lines, the director of Playa Miguel Beach Club & Aparthotel stressed that "recognizing a customer by their last name, knowing their recent behavior and offering them exactly what they want, has great potential in terms of conversion."

All the members of the table were somewhat skeptical with what seem to be the technologies of the most immediate future , differentiating between a technological innovation and the fact that it really settles in the market. They alluded to recent examples, such as the limited number of reservations made through virtual voice assistants (such as Alexa, Google or Siri) or the arrival of cryptocurrencies as a method of payment, both of which were considered authentic technological revolutions at the time and which, for the moment, , have remained more a mere commercial claim than anything else.

However, Fernando Fraguas did sense a certain potential in augmented reality for, for example, the choice of a certain room, Rentero was convinced of the decisive role that artificial intelligence will play in increasing conversion, and Alcolea saw in Big data is the real winning bet, while he added, laughing, that “what is not going to be a trend is the robot behind a hotel reception, I don't see the human factor disappearing”. Fraguas concluded and closed the table with the following headline: “intermediation changes, but tourism prevails”.

Table 2: Innovation and technology for the new commercialization

Leakage and shortage of developers, blue oceans, the importance of adapting technology to specific needs, the true definition of innovation... Many were the topics that were discussed at the second table of the day, moderated by Julián Alcolea and integrated by Cindy Johansson (Turobserver), Marian Ruiz (Incubadora Revenue), Javier Martín (AEDH), Toni Mascaró (e-Mascaró) and Marta Anego (Profitroom), who opened with a delicate question: Is it difficult to make hoteliers understand the need for innovation?

"They have wanted to sell the motorcycle many times to the hotelier," said Toni, who qualified that "you have to see what innovation really is, a concept that goes far beyond having a website and a CRM, present in all processes... there are to bet on the talent that executes it”. Johansson claimed to often run into "people who come to see big data as a complication." Hence the challenge of “knowing how to identify who we are dealing with and being able to adapt the technology to the point of being able to clearly convey the way in which it will improve their day-to-day management”. Something in which, according to Marian Ruiz, the degree of technological maturity of the hotelier greatly influences: "many times the hotelier has the website he deserves... if he is not mature, we will not be able to convince him, because it depends a lot on what he understands by necessity, and it is important to assimilate that digitization does not come to replace people, but rather monotonous jobs”.

"The challenge is knowing how to identify who we are dealing with and being able to adapt the technology to the point of being able to clearly convey the way in which it will improve day-to-day, management, etc."
Cindy Johansson, Turobserver project manager

An idea with which Javier Martín agreed, adding that "technology should not eradicate professions, but reconvert them to offer a better guest experience" and that, in this sense, "innovation is already part of the hotel's action plan" .

When asked about the most widely implemented technological innovation in distribution today , Marta Anego was clear: "Everything related to the direct channel, without a doubt, which is the one that is really adding value to the market." For his part, Mascaró was referring to machine learning, convinced that very soon “we will talk to a machine without knowing it, for example, in call centers”. In any case, the crux of the matter, he added, "is in strategic innovation, technology may take one or five years, but it will eventually arrive."

Once again, the strategy made an appearance , and statements such as the one that defends that "technology without control is useless" were repeated. These were the words of Cindy, who referred to big data as "the true revolution", but insisted on the fact that, sometimes, "not everything works for everyone... there are those who feel comfortable with your sophisticated cloud platform and its thousands of of KPIs, and there are those who value a simple PDF report much more, easy to share, which also saves time and headaches, summarizing the key ideas and proposing specific lines of action... Keep data simple... The content is the same, what changes is the continent”, he concluded.

The debate progressed and the idea that "innovation is already the base" and that the key now lies in "differentiating oneself, in being disruptive" was becoming more and more established, as Martín said. In any case, in the words of Marian Ruiz, "there is no single answer to this question, a specific innovation cannot be singled out, it is rather the sum of many of them, there are many variables that influence". And he was referring, as an example, to the way in which a rate shopper with whom he has recently started working, a solution that has been widely implemented for decades in the day-to-day life of revenue managers, continues to save days of work with just a couple of clicks .

Perhaps, therefore, it is not a question of constantly striving to invent, but of finding the most appropriate use , because as Toni said, "blue oceans no longer exist, only little puddles... we must avoid continuing to dedicate efforts to identifying them, when in reality everything is as simple as seeing what works and implementing it, even improving it”.

Julián Alcolea invited them, then, to move to the future , specifically to imagine where we will be in eight years, in 2030. Cindy aroused a smile in the audience when she wondered "if there will ever be a time when family or friends will not have to Call for a hotel recommendation. Mascaró spoke more of a question of "attitude than aptitude", referring to the fact that "machine learning and robots will be there, but the important thing is the talent of the professionals... in 10 years, whoever doesn't work will stay outside… when the tide goes down, we will see who is not wearing a swimsuit”. For her part, Marta Anego spoke of "a change in the consumption model", referring to "personalization" as a fundamental key.

The last point of the debate focused on the comparison between the big technology companies, the OTAs, and us, the hotels . While Mascaró once again alluded to the brain drain that is taking place in small companies, defining it as “the great resignation”, Javier Martín raised and answered the following question: “who really has the power? We have the power to differentiate ourselves.”

We launched the "Success Stories Series";, an initiative through which we will periodically publish stories with a happy ending, the product of our collaboration with hotels and hotel chains, sometimes also through technological or strategic partners.

This is the case, for example, of this first installment, dedicated to VIK Hotels , a client very dear to all of us and with whom we have been collaborating for many years, in which we will see how direct sales have increased thanks, also, to our alliance with Sojern . And it is that the interesting thing about different technology providers venturing to join forces are the results, and not so much the news itself, as it might seem at times.

At Paraty Tech we always strive to close agreements with companies whose tools really add value to the hotelier and constitute a strengthening complement to our services. Thus, we have undertaken integrations with the main channel managers and pms, incorporated the payment platforms of the different markets in which we operate, and added solutions such as chatbots, crm, rms, cancellation insurance, etc.





VIK Hotels is a hotel chain, with six properties (from 3 to 5 stars) in the Canary Islands, Andalusia and the Dominican Republic that, in the words of Antonio Segura , E-Business Manager, "we needed to attract more traffic to our website and keep visitors there to increase direct bookings.” All this taking into account that each hotel has its own personality, unique to the place where it is located. An objective that they consider fulfilled to date thanks to the merger of our technology and that of Sojern.

"We needed to drive more traffic to our website and keep visitors there to increase direct bookings."
Antonio Segura, E-Business Manager VIK Hotels

Below, we share the download link of this success story, endorsed by those responsible for VIK Hotels, who ensure that "Paraty Tech and Sojern are experts in their respective fields. They have been a fantastic help to our direct channel, thanks to which we are generating an increasing number of reservations. It is, without a doubt, a winning alliance.”

Download this Success Story - Vik Hotels

A new year has begun and two of the main players in hotel distribution, such as Google and Booking.com, present interesting news that can help you boost your direct sales.

As expected, sustainability gains weight and becomes an important filter, which can make the difference between being the establishment chosen by the tourist or not. But there is more…

Before getting into the matter, we take the opportunity to inform you that the famous "Google Tax" little by little begins to be reflected in the invoices that you are receiving. As many of you will remember, in October 2020 the Digital Services Tax was approved in Spain and, as Amazon also decided at the time, Google directly passes it on to its advertisers, something that it had already been doing in other countries such as Turkey, Austria or the United Kingdom. .

Although it began to be applied last May, it has not been until very recently when, in fact, it has gradually begun to be reflected in invoices, affecting any company that wants to display its ads in our country (the percentage of tax ranges between 2% and 5% depending on the country in which you decide to advertise). Below, you can see an example:


Invoice example with UK "Google Fee" aplied

This brief paragraph is only for you to take into account that, if your intention is to maintain your current investment in advertising, you will have to consider increasing it by 2% (or the corresponding percentage depending on the countries in which you advertise) so that your CPA and ROI are not affected.

Rates and availability in Google My Business

Google's March 2021 announcement of the launch of Google Hotel Ads Free Booking Links created quite a stir. In essence, it meant that any connected establishment would become likely to appear in search results, regardless of whether or not it had an active advertising campaign. Undoubtedly, a great competitive advantage for many accommodations, which all our clients began to enjoy imminently due to our status as Google Integration Partners , as we already told you then.

Now comes another very interesting novelty, available at the moment only for a limited number of hotels, which allows the loading of rates and availability in the Google My Business tab . Those who do so will become visible to the millions of users who search for hotels on Google every day, and the results will be displayed, again, in the Free Booking Links section. Through these free links, travelers who click will directly access the direct channel to complete their reservation.

How is this different from the Free Booking Links we already knew?

Fundamentally, in that the Google Hotel Ads Free Booking Links work via integration and are subject to having a Google Integration Partner. For their part, these are uploaded manually, which is more work and forces you to be very aware of possible changes or updates so that the results shown are always faithful to reality, but in exchange, all hotels can enjoy these free links that they have a Google My Business tab, which is a very important differential nuance. To check if you already have this functionality at your fingertips, all you have to do is:

• Access with the Google account with which you manage your business


• Find your hotel


• Click on Edit Profile and select Rates and Availability

What information will you be able to upload?

Although at the moment the configuration parameters of the rates and availability that you upload are somewhat limited, this functionality allows content to be uploaded up to two years in advance and users will obtain results when they carry out searches up to one year in advance and a maximum of 30 days of occupancy. Google, of course, recommends making sure you're loading the best available offer at all times to boost booking probability. You can:

• Charge a single rate per night


• Charge rates for double occupancy only


• Charge Taxes or additional fees of the fee


• Redirect traffic to your direct channel

Charging multiple rates for different room types is not available. Nor will you be able to establish minimum stay restrictions, or charge discounts or long-stay promotions. For now, this is what it is...

Sustainability, on everyone's lips

When a topic appears repeatedly in each debate, it is for a reason, and sustainability is on everyone's lips. We are facing a traveler profile, especially international, increasingly aware of good practices in terms of sustainability and, furthermore, willing to pay more for a hotel that does its homework in this regard and strives to reduce its environmental impact. .

It is not surprising, therefore, that both Google and Booking.com already offer the possibility of highlighting this characteristic of the establishment through an ecological certification label. It is very important that those hotels that are working on this facet communicate it, because otherwise, they will be losing an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition.

In the case of Google, accessing your Company Profile you will find a list of four categories to indicate if you have received some type of ecological certification. According to its website, “ecological certifications are granted to hotels that meet the sustainability criteria of an independent certification agency. Green certifications also serve to let guests and the rest of the world know that your hotel is actively working to achieve a positive environmental impact on the planet.”


Google Certified Green Label

When a hotel has the “Cert. Green” on Google, means that you affirm that you have been certified by an agency that Google recognizes and that it meets the following standards:

1. The agency uses internationally recognized and renowned criteria to evaluate the hotel.


2. The assessment focuses on the environmental impact of at least these 4 categories:


• Energy efficiency


• water conservation


• waste reduction


• sustainable sourcing


3. The agency conducts an audit on the hotel premises in order to verify its sustainability practices or uses an independent third party to carry it out.

Booking.com goes even further, and claims to have detected that its "Eco" certification label has come to confuse the traveler, as it relates it to a possible decrease in the service received and in the general experience of the stay, crashing thus his interest in making a contribution to the planet with his fear of being harmed by it.

For this reason, as Smart Travel News publishes in the interview with Marianne Gybels , director of sustainability at Booking.com, the OTA has launched the "Sustainable Travel" program, which will provide useful information to all those interested in more travel options. sustainable, something they claim to have been working on for more than eight years. From his point of view, the traveler does not have to give up anything and, in turn, the hotel deserves to be rewarded for its good work.



Through the "Sustainable Travel" program, Booking.com asks establishments to record their actions in terms of sustainability, through a simple questionnaire (just answer yes or no) that includes up to 32 points, including which include waste management, water, energy, gases, support for the local population, protection of the natural environment, etc. You can provide this information through your extranet, all with the aim of having access to the sustainable travel badge, already granted to more than 62,000 accommodations, and which will accompany the user during the different steps of the reservation process, allowing them to expand information. In addition, soon it will also appear as a filter, to be able to search only among accommodations that are part of the program. As always, in accordance with the OTA philosophy, guests will be in charge of validating these good practices, once they have stayed and can give a good account of them.

As we already know, both Google and Booking.com constitute an extraordinary showcase for the direct channel and a lot of traffic to your official website comes directly from them. That is why it is important to take advantage of their developments to continue planting seeds that contribute to boosting direct reserves.

2021 is not going to end exactly as we would have liked... But the truth is that, with its lights and shadows, it did not exactly start off on the right foot either.

The Pandemic, unleashed, continued to force us to give everything, not to lower our guard, while the different Autonomous Communities, still baffled, did not stop trying to come up with formulas to encourage demand , especially international demand.

The postponement of FITUR, despite our efforts , was a severe blow to the sector. Its celebration on the usual dates, without a doubt, would have constituted a more than necessary dose of optimism, but, probably, also imprudence. We, in any case, manage to make a "plan b". If Mohammed could not go to the mountains, the mountains would have to go to Mohammed, and the organization of the Pavilion 8 virtual fair came to fill the gap left by the suspension of all activity at Ifema in a very timely manner, and allowed us not only to promote the reactivation of tourism, but also to present new developments for the first time. Its reception was such that, just two months later, the BTL was also cancelled, it would have its replica in Portugal with equal success.

Although the pre-summer outlook was not particularly encouraging, we had high hopes for the summer season that was yet to come, and we were going to put everything on the grill so that our clients could adequately satisfy the needs of their guests, still mired in uncertainty. His demand for closeness and empathy was a golden opportunity that hotels had to take advantage of to strengthen their brand and build loyalty .

Alliances, exhaustive monitoring of the main competitors , strategic integrations ... We have made many friends whose contribution to strengthening direct sales is indisputable. Not surprisingly, this leg of the distribution has gained market share, even when giants like Booking have continued to deploy their entire technological arsenal to avoid it.

Inertia led us to complete the first four-month period of the year with figures well above those of the same period of the previous year. All was not lost and new marketing opportunities continued to emerge to continue consolidating the direct channel, beyond the fact that certain hotels seemed not to want to find out that it is this channel that, when well managed, provides them with the greatest margin of profitability.



We reached the month of June by building our booking engine with security solutions that are pioneers in the market. If it was finally going to be possible to travel, the question was, on the one hand, to make it easy for tourists to comply with all current prevention protocols. And on the other, to favor that the hotelier had the necessary resources to show himself to the general public as the best available online offer . It should be remembered that sanitary traffic lights rose to fame to play a determining role and, why not say it, also to confuse the traveler a little more. We responded to your questions with a free professional service , courtesy of specialized Ring2Travel agents, who have not stopped talking all year.

With the covered telephone service, the optimized booking engine and booming domestic tourism, we allow ourselves the license to recover and enjoy our Motivation Day. We had done our homework, the hotels felt very well cared for and they were finally breathing again. We could not neglect ourselves , but there were clear signs of recovery.

So much so that, inevitably, we began to focus on the next big event that the sector would have to face: FITUR 2022. Our wish was that those who decided to attend would do so prepared as never before. To this end, we launched the ITV of booking engines , an initiative named PreFitur Paraty Academy, consisting of 7 training sessions, during which we reviewed each and every one of the functionalities available to our engine customers: module for travel agencies , Paraty E-Payments collection system , different types of bonuses , loyalty clubs , Business Intelligence , upselling and cross-sell ling , offers and packages , etc.

Unfortunately, all that glitters is not gold and, once again, the most popular International Tourism Fair in the world will once again have Covid-19 as the protagonist. The contagions are, as the media strive to highlight, skyrocketing. The Omicron variant is already the dominant one and we are once again facing a Christmas holiday marked by the Coronavirus. Everything indicates that in January things will be better for us than they are now. If anything, worse.

Now let's be very clear. It is up to us to act responsibly. Whether Fitur is a success or a failure depends on us. Ifema is clear about it: they are going forward. And the rest? We will be doing the union, and the exhibitors who have ventured to invest in this new edition (like us), a disservice if we stage a mass fright. It is possible to hold a face-to-face event with guarantees, adopting the relevant preventive measures. You just have to want. Let's make it possible together.

Be that as it may, at Paraty Tech we will continue to adapt, train, create, and inform. Thank you all very much for this year as complicated as it is fascinating.

After a month of training, PreFitur Paraty Academy comes to an end. Today, starting at 11:30 a.m., David Madrigal will give the last webinar: "PreFitur Academy: Offers and Packages". Register now!

Seven formations distributed throughout a little less than a month. That is the balance of PreFitur Paraty Academy, an initiative that comes to an end today, leaving us with a very good taste in our mouths. We know that day to day consumes all of us and, despite this, attendance at each of the sessions has been more than respectable. If we have managed to make it clearer to you now what resources you have just for being clients of the Paraty Tech booking engine, then we have fulfilled the objective of this initiative. You still have almost 2 months to get your engine ready for FITUR, the first big event of 2022. This year, by the way, we are opening our new location and you can find us at Stand 8C04, in the central corridor of Hall 8.

In today's session, David Madrigal will explain why with the Paraty Tech engine you can sell exactly as you want, thanks to the novelties, and the usual functionalities, of our offer and package modules, the latter being unique in the market.

In addition, it will present two new functionalities that make the creation of offers the easiest of tasks, in addition to turning them into an interesting incentive for sales. We are talking, on the one hand, about the pre-designed offers module and, on the other, about offers with a built-in countdown. The first of them allows you to activate recurring offers, with the highest level of configuration, in a few clicks. The second, activate a countdown in the offers to urge the guest to book. A very especially useful resource in campaigns characterized by an attitude of compulsive buying, such as the recently concluded Black Friday campaign.

We do not extend much more, we prefer that you see all this in action. Don't forget to register for the latest PreFitur Paraty Academy webinar. Do it now through this link . It will be today, in an hour, starting at 11:30.

Thank you all very much for your attendance at the different training sessions of PreFitur Paraty Academy.

The main source of income for a hotel is the sale of rooms. But we are not revealing the wheel by stating that it is not the only one and, depending on the hotel, the complementary services can make a very important contribution.

In addition, the moment of purchase can condition, and a lot, the choice of the guest at all levels. Thus, the type of room you choose, the diet that accompanies the accommodation or the additional services that complete the reservation will often be determined by the buyer's mental, economic and personal situation. It is not the same to book at the beginning of the month than to do it at the end, nor is it the same to book in January, when we have just made a large outlay during the Christmas season, than to do it in March. And what about the sun? We handle data that confirms that good weather translates into optimism and this favors the willingness to buy.

As we already saw in the "PreFitur Academy: Business Intelligence" webinar, the booking engine is a valuable source of information that can contribute, and a lot, to the success in developing our upselling and cross-selling strategies. For example, we can easily identify which boards or rooms are most in demand based on the market of origin, the lead time of our different targets, which segments are more likely to consume extras, etc., and based on all this data, propose actions that help us increase the value of reservations before, during and after the stay.

The moment chosen by the guest to book his vacation, his getaway or his business trip, is not the only sales opportunity that we must exploit and, the better we know him, the easier it will be to make him feel special and understood. Valdas Tverijonas, Key Account Manager, will talk about all this on Thursday, November 25, from 11:30 a.m., in the penultimate PreFitur Academy webinar, “Upselling, upgrades and cross-selling. We start in a while, which means you still have time to register.

How does it work?

Let's start by differentiating concepts to fully understand the topics that we will address in this new training session:

• Upselling: we offer the customer who has already booked a service the possibility of booking a better service. For example, if you have booked a Standard Double, we invite you to exchange it for a Superior, paying the difference. Or if you have chosen AD, we can try to get you to change the regime to MP.


• Cross-selling: we offer associated services to customers who have already booked a service at our hotel. For example, if you have already reserved a room, we can invite you to buy parking, a spa session or breakfast. Additional services, in other words. It is common to offer them in the second step of the reservation process, after choosing the room.


• Upgrade: we must understand upgrades as a type of offer, that is, a technique to encourage purchase and build loyalty, through which the guest will enjoy a better service than what they have paid for. We will be doing an upgrade if we leave you a Superior at the price of a Standard Double or we offer MP at the price of AD.

Therefore, in short, they are all marketing techniques that, according to a certain business rule, seek to increase the value of the reservation and the total income of the establishment. And, as we already mentioned, we can use them before the purchase (by communicating the promotions we have in force on our official website), during the purchase (in the step corresponding to the choice of additional services or through the implementation of active retargeting tools), during the stay (being the hotel staff, or some type of automated communication, in charge of offering a certain service), and even after it, as a loyalty mechanism, seeking to build a repeat guest profile.

With the Paraty Tech booking engine you can put these techniques into practice to sell what interests you the most, how and when it suits you best:

• Additional Services: you can use the second step of the booking process to upsell, cross-sell or upgrade. There is room for everything you want: from a box of chocolates, to the entrance to visit a monument, through a room or diet upgrade, a spa session, parking, theming, a transfer, etc. You decide what to sell, how far in advance, in what range of dates, at what price (per stay, person, night, free, etc.), the space available, etc.


• Newsletters: Take advantage of the segmentation of your database to offer each segment what you know they like. Newsletters are very effective for informing, but the opening and click rates improve a lot when you communicate offers or discounts. Make use of them to remember certain additional services available to you, but, above all, so that your potential guests can benefit from your promotions. Upgrades, for example, work very well in newsletters and their segmentation capacity is very high.


• Pre-Stay Email: probably the most effective resource at your disposal for upselling. You decide the periodicity of this shipment (7, 3 and 1 day(s) before arrival, for example), in which you can configure the additional services or upsellings that you consider appropriate. Thus, if the guest booked a Standard room in January, a few days before their stay, planned for July, you can suggest changing it for a Superior room, or invite them to complete it with an excursion. Probably, a few hours after enjoying your vacation, your mood is skyrocketing and you are more willing to spend.


• Birthday greeting email: we all love to be remembered on our birthday. Use the birthday greeting email to lower the price of a certain additional service (downselling) or offer an upgrade, via promocode, for the next reservation. Your guest will highly appreciate this initiative and will probably spend more when they stay at your hotel again.


• Online Check In: online check in, due to the Pandemic, has gained many followers, opening a new door for sales. Take advantage of the fact that your guest accesses your online check-in system to up-sell and cross-sell.


• Loyalty Clubs: you have gotten them to join your club, a great first step. Now you must take advantage of that segmentation to do preferential upselling and cross-selling. Reward loyalty to offer upgrades, additional services with limited availability or at a better price, etc. You can do it via login (once the guest is identified as a member of the club) or with a simple newsletter.

As you can see, the options are endless. During this training, we will not only tell you everything you can do, but we will teach you how to configure it yourself, so that you acquire the degree of autonomy that you demand. The benefits of implementing a good upselling and cross-selling strategy are many.

Benefits for the hotelier

Ultimately, upselling and cross-selling aim to increase the total revenue of the establishment. But there are more implicit benefits:

• Build loyalty: when applied properly, all these techniques will make your guest perceive your interest in improving their experience, encouraging them to repeat.


• Strengthen lines of business: launch new lines of business and use your direct channel to boost sales, helping to increase the value of reservations.


• Improve the guest experience: the more variety, richness and quality you are able to offer the guest, the better their experience in your establishment will be.


• Increase ADR: a correct upselling and cross-selling strategy will help you increase your ADR.


• Increase your revenue: the higher the ADR, the more total income. Exploit the profitability of your establishment.

Don't you have additional services? Remember to ask us about Transfers & Experiences, the latest member of the Paraty World family. Integrate your catalog of products and services with your booking engine and get ready to see how your income grows without worrying about anything: excursions, tickets, transfers, car rental, exclusive experiences, etc.

Do not miss the webinar "PreFitur Academy: Upgrades, upselling and cross-selling", on Thursday, November 25 from 11:30 a.m., with Valdas Tverijonas. Register now!

The weight of travel agencies in distribution is undeniable. Hotels and hotel chains are well aware of this, accustomed to receiving daily quote requests from agencies interested in including their establishments in their catalogs of offers and packages.

Conscious of this situation and immersed in a constant search for new ways to enhance the direct channel, at Paraty Tech, we have developed the Travel Agencies Module. Fully integrated with the official website's booking engine, this functionality allows hoteliers to automate this cumbersome process, freeing their teams from this task so they can focus on what truly matters. After all, technological innovation should precisely replace humans to improve operations and services where the human factor doesn't necessarily add value.

How it Works

Travel Agencies Registration Form



Travel Agencies Booking Process

Simplified, the Travel Agencies Module translates into a section on the official website through which travel agencies can quickly and easily register, identify themselves as such, and then start selling directly through the direct channel with conditions predefined via the configuration panel, accessible through Paraty Hotel Manager, the backend of our booking engine.

Throughout the booking process, the agency will have the commission percentage visible, also being able to check the price of their search and the amount in euros that the sale would represent.

From here, the options are endless. Let's explore them in detail.

• Quick and Easy Registration Process


• Through the Agencies Section: Travel agencies access the Agencies section of the official website and fill out the registration form. With each registration, the hotelier receives a notification via email. It is solely their decision to determine if the registration requires further validation. If so, the agency is informed that their request is being processed, and the hotelier only needs to access the list of registrations in the configuration panel and change its status from "pending" to "active."


• Through the Configuration Panel: In addition to validating new registrations, from the configuration panel, the hotelier can also manually add agencies, delete them, change their status, edit their data, and modify, at any time, the sales conditions, payments, cancellation policies, rates, etc.



Configuration Panel


• Configuration of Conditions


• Generic: The hotelier has the option to set, in a generic way, the same sales conditions for all agencies, including the commission percentage, net or retail, rates, regimes, rooms, occupancy, stay restrictions, payment methods and deadlines, booking window, etc.


• Specific: The hotelier can also configure all these parameters on an individual basis for each agency. This alternative offers the highest degree of possible control.


• Combined: The third option involves establishing generic conditions for all agencies but manually modifying only those of interest for any reason.



• Configuration Parameters


• Commission percentage


• Special rates


• Payment method (credit card, transfer, Bizum, etc.)


• Payment terms (advance, percentage, etc.)


• Cancellation policies


• Rooms


• Occupancies


• Regimes


• Stay restrictions


• Booking window



• Integration with Paraty E-Payments

If the hotelier also has our payment platform, Paraty E-Payments, they can manage everything related to the collection of agency reservations through it (tokenization, installment and deferment, status control, sending links for payment, etc.).


• Queries and Searches

In the administration panel, the hotelier has a search system with filters to locate agencies and check their reservations and the revenue they have generated.


• Reservation Identification

Reservations made by travel agencies are identified as such by the word Agency in the Origin column in the Reservations section of Paraty Hotel Manager.


• Downloading Reservations to the Channel / PMS

The identifier for reservations made by agencies is different from direct reservations made by guests. This makes it much easier to identify them for downloading to the channel or PMS.


• Confirmation Email


• Agency: The agency receives a personalized confirmation email with its details and logo to facilitate the delivery of relevant documentation to its clients.


• End Customer: It is also possible to enable a configuration that sends the confirmation email to the end customer, in this case, hiding the price so that the agency enjoys the privacy and autonomy required for its professional activity.



• Connection with BI

Like with the rest of the reservations, all agency activity in the booking engine is recorded and monitored in the BI. Information of extraordinary value to identify trends in this sales channel.


• Redirects

A feature of Paraty Tech's booking engine is its obsession with achieving zero unavailability. Agencies can also benefit from this and obtain availability for virtually any search, including those where other channels cannot offer it. For example, if they are looking for a quadruple room and the hotel does not have one, the engine will return availability by offering two double rooms.

Benefits for the Hotelier

Well-managed, the role of agencies can be very profitable. Certainly, facilitating their registration, consultation, and booking processes through the direct channel can encourage an increase in the number of agencies interested in marketing a particular establishment, with the potential for increased sales. But there is more.

• Accurate and Up-to-Date Information: No channel has the level of updating that the direct channel offers, by definition, the most carefully maintained by establishments.


• Inventory Available Only in the Direct Channel: Certain rooms will only be available in the direct channel. Agencies can benefit from this circumstance, and hotels find in them an additional sales avenue.


• Absolute Control Over Prices: If agencies search directly in the direct channel, you prevent them from offering erroneous quotes obtained from pirate channels.


• Ease and immediacy in managing this intermediary profile: Hotels optimize dealings with this intermediary, and communication between agencies and the hotel becomes more agile and fluid.


• Maximum Autonomy for Agencies: Unless the hotelier is interested in validating new registrations, agencies can start selling, unaided, in a matter of minutes.


• Workload Reduction for Hotel Staff: The automation of this process translates into valuable time savings.


• Greater Visibility of the Direct Channel: The fact that agencies offer a particular hotel to their clients ensures that they visit the official website to learn more before making a purchase decision.


• More Traffic to the Official Website: Greater visibility means more traffic. Not only from potential buyers but also from those with whom they share their experience in the hotel.


• Better Organic Positioning: Organic search engine positioning essentially relies on visits and links. It will undoubtedly benefit as the number of agency registrations increases.

If you want to learn more about the Travel Agencies Module and see it in action, don't miss the webinar:

“Pre-Fitur Academy: Travel Agencies and Companies Module”, November 9, 11:30 a.m.

You can register by clicking here!