Offering Hotel Teams The Benefits Of Employee-Rate Hotel Stays Globally
Hilversum (Amsterdam), The Netherlands, March 30, 2021 … An expanding collection of hotel chains, hotel management companies and independent properties around the world is coming together with the newly-announced Hotel Employee Rate travel program, offering hotel employee teams the extraordinary benefit of exceptional-value, employee-rate hotel stays, similarly offered by major hotel brands. The innovative global initiative is opening new worlds of travel for hotel employees while helping hotels build guest room occupancy during traditionally low demand periods, tapping into an expanding and highly devoted leisure travel market of hotel employees internationally.
The Hotel Employee Rate program represents an innovative, new incentive that hotels can offer their teams as the lodging industry is working to restaff their operations. It is the only global travel platform providing hotel employees and up to ten of their friends and family fixed hotel employee rates and/or preferred rates discounted up to 50% at hotels across various hotel brands and independent properties in over 100 countries worldwide. The new Hotel Employee Rate program has offices internationally, with locations in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. In support of hotel employee travel, the International Society of Hotel Associations (ISHA) is collaborating with the Hotel Employee Rate program to inform ISHA’s member associations across the United States, Canada and the Bahamas on the program’s benefits for hotel employees.
“The excitement independent hotels and hotel companies around the world have expressed in joining the program is tremendous,” says Co-Founder and Managing Director John Laclé. “We recently had an extraordinary showing at ITB Berlin. With the commitments we received during this conference and our recent business expansion into Latin America and Asia-Pacific, we are expecting a myriad of additional hotels and resorts from all over the world to join the program in the next 30-60 days with many more to come later in the year.”
The innovative program is affordable for hotels to join, is flexible, and easy to administer. To join the Hotel Employee Rate travel program, hotels and resorts contribute a minimum of their inventory at hotel employee rates. “We’ve designed this program to be hotel friendly,” Laclé noted. “It is intended to help fill hotel rooms over low demand periods when they need business the most while providing their employees with the extraordinary benefit of employee hotel rates at properties globally.” Hotels pay a small annual membership & administrative fee, depending upon the size of the hotel. “With little administrative supervisory work required, our annual membership fees are an exceptional value,” Mr. Laclé asserts. “There are no authorization forms to complete, and the program is automated.” Hotels and resorts joining the program complete an initial onboarding process. The properties gain access to an online extranet whereby they can manage their own employees’ participation and properly yield manage their inventory. In addition, each hotel employee can add up to ten friends and family into the program on their own through their account. The Hotel Employee Rate program directly connects to the majority of hotel systems allowing for seamless inventory control and reservations fulfillment.
Employees, their friends and family can book hotel employee rate accommodations in destinations internationally at www.hotelemployeerate.com, gaining access by using creditials given by their employer that are provided by the Hotel Employee Rate program. Hotel employee rates are password-protected, and are therefore 100% unpublished and opaque. “Hotels are concerned with rate-parity and rate-integrity in the marketplace,” says Co-Founder and Managing Director Julia Mayrhofer. “We are keenly aware of this and have taken great strides to protecting this information from the general public.” Hotel employee rates are fixed annual rates, based on a hotel destination’s historical performance and the hotel’s classification.
A wide variety of independent hotels and resorts have already signed on to the Hotel Employee Rate program. Notable hotels and resorts offering employee rates for Hotel Employee Rate members include the exquisite four-star Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, the four-star Chateaux at Deer Valley, Utah, the four-star La Cabana Beach Resort & Casino Aruba, Delfins Beach Resort Bonaire, Element Amsterdam, Courtyard City Center Berlin, Dr. Holms Hotel Norway, the five-star Lotte Hotel Seattle, to name a few. While the Hotel Employee Rate program was developed to benefit independent hotels, a number of smaller hotel companies and franchise properties based in the USA, Europe and the Caribbean have already signed on, representing such major hotel brands as Marriott, Doubletree, Crowne Plaza, Hyatt Place, Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, Wyndham, Element by Westin, Courtyard by Marriott, Tapestry by Hilton, Tru by Hilton and several others.
Co-Founders and Managing Directors, Julia Mayrhofer and John Laclé, founded the company in 2020 as an initiative to help the hotel industry recover from the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. Both are hotel veterans with global experience in operations and revenue management with major brands such as Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International as well as smaller companies and independent properties. This enabled them to tap into a vast area of expertise and understanding of hotel sales, revenue management, distribution and hotel operations. “The concept of the Hotel Employee Rate program was inspired by the hoteliers working the front-lines during Covid-19,” Laclé states. “The pandemic has had a tremendous impact on our industry. The Hotel Employee Rate program is designed to help bring travel back as the world gets vaccinated. We believe all hoteliers—especially today–deserve to receive the benefit of hotel employee rate travel. We recognize the contribution this has for the recovery of travel and tourism and the benefits it offers our colleagues in the hotel industry.”
The Hotel Employee Rate program is providing those hotels and resorts affiliated with a lodging association that is a member of the International Society of Hotel Associations with 20% savings on their first-year’s annual membership fee by emailing Hotel Employee Rate at isha@hotelemployeerate.com.
