EL SEGUNDO, CA and HOUSTON, TX June 12, 2017—In December 2016, Vagabond Inn Corporation completed its transition to its new distribution platform, Windsurfer® CRS by SHR, a leading provider of hospitality distribution technology. Vagabond Inn Corporation spent the 9-month transition process working with each individual Vagabond Inn hotel to ensure all locations had a seamless experience. One key driving force in the company’s decision to partner with SHR and implement Windsurfer was the platform’s mobile responsive booking engine.
“We are extremely happy with the look, feel, and most importantly, performance of the mobile booking engine provided through Windsurfer,” said Kyle Lee, Vice President of Marketing for Vagabond Inn Corporation.
Prior to the transition, Vagabond Inn Corp’s mobile bookings did not reflect the steady year-after-year increase that the company saw in mobile traffic and visitors. After completing its first conversion of a hotel to the Windsurfer booking engine in April 2016, the company saw immediate results, and recognized the potential Windsurfer had for the whole brand. With all Vagabond Inn locations active on the new booking engine at the start of 2017, Vagabond Inn Corp. has seen vast year-over-year improvements to its mobile metrics.
In comparing the first four months of 2017 to the same period in 2016, Vagabond Inn found a 41% increase in mobile sessions, a 35% increase in average time spent on mobile pages, and a 1606% increase in booked revenue from mobile devices.
“SHR is extremely pleased with the results that Vagabond Inn has achieved with Windsurfer and in particular, with the mobile aspect of our platform,” said Drew Rosser, Vice President of Sales for SHR. “We look forward to helping the company score many more wins within their overall distribution strategy.”
“While our guests still prefer to book their reservations on a computer over a mobile device, the shift to mobile has already begun and we expect mobile bookings to continuously narrow the gap and take the lead very quickly,” Lee said.
