The hospitality and travel industry have stayed out of direct marketing. Instead there's squeezed profits of the service providers in this industry.
BANGALORE: In this age of direct marketing, the hospitality and travel industry has remained out of its ambit.
There have always been layers of distribution channel, which have pushed cost and squeezed profits of the service providers in this industry.
Bangalore’s Saastra Software has now developed a product do away with the intermediaries and reduce the distance between service providers and end-users.
Vishnu Murali Konduru, CEO and founder, Saastra Software, said: “For over 25 years the business model of hotels and travel companies has remained unchanged. There has been three degrees of separation between the service provider and the end-user. With our new software, we will be providing a platform that cut the degree of separation between them to one.”
And with this shortening of distance would come huge savings and more competitive hotel room rates. The savings that Konduru is talking are in terms of the commission payouts by hotels to travel agents, which was a whopping Rs 821 crore ($205 million) in 2006.
The IT firm’s internet product is based on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which does not involve any capital cost. Here, hotels can access the technology by just registering themselves as members on payment of monthly rentals.
Once they are members, they can offer their room inventories directly to consumers for sale. For bulk room deals, corporates can put up bids on the portal to which various hotels can respond, and there would be reverse auction. Konduru said consumers would also be able to get attractive room tariffs as hotels would be passing on the savings on commission to them.
“What our platform does is that it not only saves cost for the service providers and enables them provide their products at lower rates but also keeps their profits intact,” Konduru said.
Konduru said Saastra is different from travel portals in that it is a technology provider while the latter are distributors of room inventories and operate on the premise of commission.
Saastra’s web-based eco-system automates hotel and travel businesses for property management system, distribution system/ inventory system, CRM, e-commerce platform and payment.
The savings on automation cost for a 75-room property will be around Rs 5 lakh with Saatra. Konduru said currently there are 75,000 rooms in the hospitality industry (organised sector), which are not automa-ted.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}