London, November 18, 2015: SiteMinder’s20,000 hotel customers now have access to traveller markets across the emerging African economy, thanks to the company’s latest partnership withAfrica’s largest online travel agency, SafariNow.com.
SafariNow.com now joins more than 250 other online booking channels integrated into SiteMinder’s market-leading online distribution platform, The Channel Manager, which offers a real-time, two-way connection to more than 120 of the world’s top property management systems and central reservation systems to enable seamless delivery of rates, availability and reservations for hotels.
Tom Williams, chief operating officer at SafariNow.com, says: “In South Africa, alone, we currently have five times the number of establishments than the world’s most dominant online travel agencies. But while the majority of our establishments are located in and around that region – and across the entire African continent – we are growing our presence globally.
“We specifically chose to partner with SiteMinder to grow our supply of real-time bookable inventory both in Africa and globally, and to provide our accommodation establishment clients with a wider choice of reservation system integrations.”
With more than 23,000 listed accommodation establishments in Southern Africa and more than one million visitors each month, SafariNow.com is the largest and most established African-based accommodation booking network. The mobile-first website lists a wide range of accommodation options for travellers, from single-room houses to hotels and bed & breakfasts, as well as safari lodges, luxury yachts and castles.
Hotel customers of SiteMinder now have the opportunity to integrate SafariNow.com into their online distribution strategy to streamline their administration and directly reach the African traveller market. According to the UNWTO, Africa saw its tourism revenues increase by three percent to US$36 billion in 20141 while ForwardKeys has reported that arrivals on-the-book from October 2015 to March 2016 are running four percent higher than the same period last year2.
Lisa Horne, general manager – South Africa at SiteMinder, says, “SiteMinder is pleased to partner with SafariNow.com and provide our hotel customers yet another channel through which they can market and sell their inventory. SafariNow.com is particularly attractive for hotels as it offers highly competitive commissions from as low as five percent. And, with research showing that mobile is fast becoming the primary channel for African consumers to access the Internet3, SafariNow.com’s mobile-first website ensures that listed hotels are going to be found.”
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
