Since being acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $930 million in early 2014, TravelClick, a New York-based provider of B2B distribution and marketing services for hotels, says its mission hasn’t changed. But since then, the toolbox TravelClick offers hotels has evolved quite a bit.
Larry Kutscher, who’s entering his sixth year as CEO for TravelClick, said his company’s business intelligence products have become the heart of the company and really stand out among other revenue management software.
One such product, Demand360, Kutscher said, is especially changing the way hotels do business. This is a data tool that allows hotels to analyze future booking information (sometimes as far as a year out) versus a competitive set.
Kutscher touted the detailed information that Demand360 provides, giving hoteliers insights into underperforming months or times of the year as well as different channels and types of bookings.
“Historical data is interesting, but it isn’t enough to help you know what you should do in the future,” Kutscher said.
Currently, the data is pulled from about 20,000 chain hotels’ property management systems. But Kutscher said TravelClick is “actively looking” into other data sources that they could add to that.
Yet TravelClick isn’t putting all of its resources into this one type of product. Instead, the company is pushing a more holistic solutions-oriented approach for hoteliers, involving a few “core products.”
“Our strategy is to integrate our core products together,” Kutscher said.
Aside from finessing its business intelligence products, TravelClick purchased a French video company, TVTrip, in early 2015 to help hoteliers really maximize their conversion rate, primarily with direct bookings.
“Video dramatically increased the conversion rate” of hotels that used it their websites. Using a network of videographers, TravelClick advises hotels on what types of video content to gather (room tours, property views, etc.) and then centrally edits and centrally posts the videos to the hotels’ own websites.
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