Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Be a winner, use Roomer

Nowadays, the No Show matter in hotel industry became a real business industry. On one hand, any customer that fully paid the room on the online booking website can be confronting to the problem of non-refundable hotel reservation. Most of the customers don’t pay the insurance of cancellation due to its expensive price. On the other hand, the hotel will use all profits that generates an occupied room; money spent by the customer in facilities and external activities such as the restaurant, room service and so on. Also, the image of the hotel can be impacted: an empty hotel can convey bad impressions for others potential customers. Moreover, the customer who had not the possibility to honour its booking won’t be pay-back and can give negative comments about the hotel on online social network such as Facebook or TripAdvisor. On travel agency’s side, hotel won’t pay the commission on no show.
Therefore, no shows are a lack of business.
Due to this observation, a company find the solution to resolve this problem. A new tech-tool, that creates a new market place.
Roomer, is a start-up company which provides an online marketplace where travellers can sell non-refundable hotel reservations, addresses the merchant model. After register on the website, the seller will indicate all his information concerning his booking. Then, the buyer will make the reservation on this discount booking and will be able to register in the hotel with his own name and bank data.

"My husband broke his leg right before our trip. He was in no condition to travel but we'd already paid for the hotel room. I'm so happy I found Roomer! We were able to sell our reservation to someone else and we couldn't be more relieved." Amanda F., California, USA.




All parties find their own interest in this new system:
-          The seller : gets his money back on its booking
-          The buyer : can enjoy a discount on a hotel room with no extra fees
-          The travel agency : will have good comments due to this “win-win” situation
-          The hotel : will enjoy more an occupied room that will generate profits instead of a no show
-          Roomer: increases its benefits with different partnerships.
Also, an important point is that now, the website Roomer is free for everyone. The goal for its managing director, Richie Karaburun, is that in the future, the seller will have some extra fee. However, at this point “our main goal is to establish a trustworthy marketplace,”.
However, there are no guarantees. Roomer doesn’t guarantee that the traveller will be able to sell his booking to someone else. Roomer is an opportunity when the customer didn’t have any option before. Also, another disadvantage that can be noted is that the seller, in order to sell his booking, will have to discount the initial price. All his money won’t be entirely recover.
In the future, the aim of roomer is to extend new technology tool to the cruise company, another sector with a high rate of incremental revenue.
In our point of view this new tool is a real change in the hotel room industry. In a crisis situation, it will give to the customer more flexibility, and it will increase their satisfaction regarding the hotel, the travel agency and roomer. It will be also a good and useful idea to extend this principle to the transportation industry.

Rosie & Marion

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