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Issue dated -
21st March
2005

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'Offering Best Internet Rates On Hotel
Website Is Becoming The Norm'

Vishwas Patel, CEO and Anupama
Salvi, COO Avenues India Pvt Ltd speak to Lakshmi
Subramanian about ResAvenue, a complete online hotel
reservation system with a built in payment gateway

EH&C: What is the need for an online
booking engine?

VISHWAS PATEL: Travel related
eCommerce accounts for over 52 per cent of all Internet
eCommerce volumes worldwide. Increasingly, hotels worldwide
are relying on direct-to-customer sales to increase their
profitability and bring in new customers. Last year, 20 per
cent of hotel inventories worth US$14 billion were bought
online of which 70 per cent were direct-to-customer sales. The
practice of putting up a best Internet rate for the hotel room
inventory on the hotel website is becoming the norm. In
addition, rising foreign tourist inflow and growing corporate
culture call for a complete online solution catering to all
the needs of hotel properties. It is important that the Indian
hospitality industry goes online in a major way.

What are the main features of your online
hotel reservation system?

ANUPAMA SALVI: Our booking engine is
designed to enable hotels to increase direct sales from their
own websites. It is a fully hosted, plug-and-play software
solution that integrates directly into the hotel website. It
is a multi-lingual reservation engine, which allows hotel to
accept reservation in 15 international languages. Hotels pay
almost 30-40 per cent commissions to their agents. With the
online reservation system hotels can do away with the
traditional distribution channel and save the additional
costs. It will also give them direct access to the customer,
which enables customer loyalty. It has an in-built
multi-currency (US$, GBP, EURO, SIN$ and INR) credit card
service to accept real-time online payments from guests,
without the need for a hotel to have an Internet merchant
account. It offers both credit and debit card payment options.
It saves reservations staff's time and speeds up the
reservation process. Hotels can manipulate rates on their
websites to match their occupancy levels. Wholesale travel
agents and corporate clients can enjoy instant online
reservation facility through the hotel websites, at their
password-protected pre-negotiated contract rates. Also the
hotel inventory can be pumped into all the major GDS like
Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus etc as well as major Internet portal
like Hotels.com, Expedia, Travelocity etc. This ensures that
the hotel inventory is pumped into all possible global
distribution channels.

How does the online hotel reservation
system work?

VISHWAS PATEL: The system integrates
directly into the hotel website, like for instance,
theleela.com. To book rooms, customers can visit individual
hotel websites, view the rooms, and click on the reservation
link. This will take them to the ResAvenue hotel reservation
system. The rooms available are displayed once the dates
chosen are entered. Customers are then required to enter their
credit card details to pay the amount online. They receive a
voucher via e-mail instantly, confirming their reservation.
ResAvenue also sends an instant booking alert to the hotel by
fax, e-mail and also SMS. The entire operation is hosted and
maintained by ResAvenue.

Who is your primary target group?

VISHWAS PATEL: ResAvenue works
equally well for a small 10 room hotel as also for a
multi-location international chain. We currently have a wide
spectrum of properties in India, SriLanka, Malaysia and
Singapore.

Why would hotels adopt ResAvenue when
most of them have their own websites?

ANUPAMA SALVI: Although many hotels
have their own websites, customers can't complete a booking
transaction, as the websites don't have a real-time booking
engine coupled with an online payment gateway. ResAvenue
offers hotels the full solution. It has a separate agent login
wherein the agent is given a user name and password.
Pre-negotiated contract rates with hotels are fed into the
system and the agent's customers can be booked through that
route. There is also a corporate login at special
pre-negotiated rates that are not available for ordinary
customers.

You slashed the ResAvenue rates during
HospitalityWorld 2005? What is the investment required for the
system as per the new package?

VISHWAS PATEL: Unlike hoteliers in
the US and Europe, hoteliers in the Indian sub-continent are
just discovering the benefits of online reservation systems.
We decided to slash the rates so that the entry barriers are
considerably reduced and the online reservation systems are
adopted at an accelerated rate in India. At present there are
no other players in India in this segment, which is an added
advantage.

An event such as HospitalityWorld 2005 was
the perfect platform to launch the new package, as it was a
very large-scale event and helped enhancing awareness about
ResAvenue. For most standard or first class hotels the cost of
implementing ResAvenue on their website will involve a
one-time payment of Rs 7,500 in the first year and Rs 1,200
per year from the second year onwards. There is no monthly
fees or other hidden costs, except for a fixed percentage
transaction fee per sale, which covers all fees charged by the
credit or debit card processor for every sale. Since the
operation is hosted out of our servers, there are no recurring
high-end hardware costs, software licenses and expensive
technical manpower costs to be borne by the hoteliers.

Which are the major hotel properties
that have adopted this system?

ANUPAMA SALVI: Our major clients in
India include the Leela Group, all brands of the Choice Group,
Kumarakom Lake Resort, The Mirador, to name a few.

What has been the response at
HospitalityWorld 2005?

ANUPAMA SALVI: The response at
HospitalityWorld 2005 has been tremendous. About 35 Indian and
International hoteliers across all categories signed up for
ResAvenue. Executive Enclave, The Talera Group, Pride Hotel,
Hotel Golden Star, Quilon Hotels & Resorts (South India),
Hotel Sibayak Beras Tagi (Indonesia) are some of our new
clients.

What is the volume of business generated
by ResAvenue?

VISHWAS PATEL: The parent company
Avenues India Pvt Ltd is south Asia's largest eCommerce
company with a worldwide customer base. ResAvenue was launched
in May 2004. Over 100 Indian properties are currently using
this system to sell their room inventory online. It is one of
the fastest growing hospitality solutions available today.
Properties in SriLanka, Malaysia and Singapore too have
adopted this system. It is soon to be launched in the US and
Europe.

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