20 October 2015 – Dallas, US – One of Singapore’s largest hotel chains, Fragrance Hotels, has revealed its group-wide bookings from the web have risen forty percent since making the decision one year ago to partner with SiteMinder, the global hotel industry’s leading cloud platform.
The Singapore Stock Exchange-listed hotel group today uses SiteMinder’s Channel Manager to power its online distribution and deliver its room rates, availability and reservations in real-time between its integrated property management system, Pyxis, and its online channels.
“Managing more than twenty of the most sought-after budget accommodation options in Singapore is very difficult – in fact, impossible – to manage without good and reliable technology like SiteMinder’s,” says Chan Chi Ho, Assistant E-Commerce Manager at Fragrance Hotels.
According to HRS’ Hotel Price Radar for 2014[1] and the first half of 2015[2][3], Singapore has one of the four most expensive average hotel room rates in the Asia Pacific.
Mr Chan says: “In 2014, we realized we needed to stop spending time and manpower on updating our online channels’ extranets and actually focus on looking after our guests! At the time, we would receive in excess of 100 online bookings on any given day, and making sure those bookings were updated in Pyxis, and that the rates and availability of our rooms were updated across all our channels, was a full-time role. And one we could no longer do manually.
“Bookings are up forty percent since we partnered with SiteMinder. Using The Channel Manager has helped us to focus more on our other tasks and less on managing our rooms online. We’re saving about 120 hours of manpower per month. Ultimately, it’s allowed us to maximize our online revenue right up to the last room.
“SiteMinder’s technology is not only affordable and user-friendly, it is stable and we have full trust in its connectivity.”
A part of the Global Premium Hotels brand, Fragrance Hotels is Singapore’s second largest budget hotel chain with 21 properties and more than 1,200 rooms. Since 1998, it has offered affordable quality accommodation to travelers with the goal of providing “smart comfort”.
SiteMinder’s director of sales – Asia, Kevin Tatem, says the streamlining of the group’s administrative costs has also enabled significant cost savings.
“Without doubt, the return on investment for deploying SiteMinder’s integrated technology has been tremendous for Fragrance’s business. It is always satisfying for SiteMinder to work closely with PMS partners like Pyxis to provide such great results for our mutual customers,” he says.
1 Annual Hotel Price Radar 2014: The results are in, Travel Weekly Asia, 25 February 2015
2 Macau: Most expensive hotels in Asia-Pacific destinations, eTurboNews, 11 May 2015
3 Most expensive hotel rates in Asia: Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore, eTurboNews, 3 August 2015
