23 Sep 2024
Eduard Jimenez: We have been in the Middle East for 16 years now. We started with one hotel in Dubai Investment Park, and now guests can rest easy at 11 properties: seven in Dubai, two in Abu Dhabi, and two in Doha. Premier Inn Middle East is a joint venture between Whitbread (the leading UK hospitality company) and the Emirates Group. So, it is a venture between two very strong companies. We operate as a separate entity from the UK and Germany. The UK has over 800 properties and Germany has over 50, so although our brand standard stays consistent, we operate in the markets separately.
Eduard Jimenez: Our new Managing Director, Simon Leigh, came onboard about two and a half years ago. His vision was to centralize the commercial structure in the region. Each hotel seemed to have its own strategy, and there was no real regional alignment. We had operational standards, but that wasn't the case commercially. When I came on board, the mission was centralization. I brought on Nadia as Head of Revenue and brought in Sapna as a Head of Sales, immediately centralizing these functions. We also centralized reservations.
Nadia and I sat down together to discuss how we could make the biggest difference, and this was when we realized that our distribution landscape, especially with leisure, was not very strategic. We wanted to leverage a strong and dynamic connectivity partner here, and we started doing our research.
Nadia Purkayassta: To Eduard's point, when we assessed leisure distribution, we saw that we still had a lot of static rates with wholesalers, and it was clear to us that was not the way forward. We had direct connectivity with a handful of partners, but when we started to remove static rates, everyone else wanted direct connectivity right away.
We look after 11 hotels, and they all have very diversified rate plans, which means every individual partner would need 20 rate plans per hotel. That's over 200 per partner – we have a team dedicated to distribution and system management and even then, we knew it wouldn't be scalable. It would have just been very painful. So, we really were in search of one partner that could cut through all the technical complexity.
Nadia Purkayassta: Up until last summer, everything on the B2B side was static. This was predominantly with wholesalers. The larger ones had direct connectivity, but they only really used it as a back-up plan when we were on stop sale. We decided not to issue a winter rate and actively encouraged the select few wholesalers to book via their direct connection. We began thinking about how we could reach more partners with just one connection.
Eduard Jimenez: Static rates were something we inherited, and it was always about how to ensure they deliver value to the commercial proposition rather than creating pricing issues by being wrongly distributed. When we reviewed the state of our distribution, we realized that 90% of the partners we were working on static had the ability to work on dynamic so we transitioned them to only dynamic. There are still some Tour Operators that only work on static rates because of their business model and if our strategies align we still work with them. The great thing about iOL X is that we also have the ability to integrate those partners on a one on one connection.
Nadia Purkayassta: Our IT Director heard about iOL X when he was looking at the capabilities of the iOL Pay solution. It came up out of the blue when a member of your team mentioned the full suite of products during the meeting, and we were immediately very excited to hear more.
Eduard Jimenez: It came down to ease of use, efficiency, and cost of distribution - for us, and our partners. It is quite challenging to tell your partners to go to a third party, as they immediately think it's going to cost them more or that their margins will be capped.
Nadia Purkayassta: Exactly, with iOL X, it is literally as close as you can get to direct connectivity for your partners – which is amazing! iOL X also works with some very big hotel chains, and we immediately saw the value of that. At the end of the day, when we speak to partners, we actively tell them they don't just get the Premier Inn product; they get access to the entire iOL X marketplace. Partners immediately see the benefit of that.
Eduard Jimenez: And, with all of that in mind, we selected iOL X and went live about six months ago. Things have been great; it has been really easy for us to use. There was no heavy integration required as we connected via SynXis, with whom iOL works very closely. iOL X is perfect for us in this segment, and we are seeing nice growth in month-on-month bookings, which is very positive so early on!
Nadia Purkayassta: To be honest, not specifically. We just really liked your business model - no charges for us and no commissions for partners. It is a win-win for us all. We also knew that the iOL team is very active in bringing on new demand partners, which was quite exciting for us. We also really liked that we could onboard our own partners so easily. Now we just refer partners to iOL, and they are easily onboarded, which is just as attractive as the current list of partners!
Nadia Purkayassta: Testing – from length of stay to lead time. It was very important for us that everything was set up correctly from the onset. Furthermore, as a final check in the box, we require a test booking for each rate plan at each property – that's over 200 test bookings.
The iOL team completed all the test bookings for us in a relatively quick timeframe. They really understood our requirement here, and the great thing is, we don't need to repeat this process for each new partner. We are ready to move forward in a scalable manner.
With iOL X, hotel chains can access a vast network, and at the same time, the agents don't have their mark-up impacted.
Eduard Jimenez: They should really think about ease of use from both sides. Payments are also easily managed with iOL X's in-built VCC wallet, so for most agencies, it's a great way to access a lot of product without having their margins heavily eroded.
Nadia Purkayassta: Hotels must take into account scalability from multiple angles. As well as the operational efficiencies, from a financial perspective, iOL is our merchant of record and owns the virtual credit card facility. This saves us a significant amount of time in assessing the financial viability of every partner we work with, as it is a significant bottleneck. So when you look at solutions, you must take into account not just the technical and operational side, but the legal aspects also.
In addition to this, flexibility in how you do business is important. For some partners, we don't want to maintain a direct contract, but we still want to have them connected properly. iOL X gives us that flexibility and choice to work with partners how we want to, not how we have to.
Nadia Purkayassta: Our aim is to remain simple. We work on efficiency. Having few partners, but the right partners, is the key for us. Looking forward, we want to drive more dynamic connectivity with our corporate and airline partners. iOL is already in discussions with some of these partners to see how we can fast-track things dynamically, but it is a work in progress.
Eduard Jimenez: From a leisure perspective, we want to adapt and do more of what is relevant to clients here. We want to test different offerings and see if we can attract more leisure clients over time. We will also be working closely with iOL to analyze our source markets and see how we can align this with the regional trends.
We are very focused on growth – we have strong plans of growing the brand in new and existing markets and will be working with iOL on refining our distribution strategy as we grow our reach and portfolio.
