Choice Hotels International has launched ChoiceEdge, a cloud-based global reservation system and digital analytics program that will ultimately be used by more than 6,500 Choice Hotels properties.
The move will aid franchisees in managing the volume of transactions as well as bringing data analytics to the table in a bigger way.
“Most of the industry’s lagging behind,” said Choice CEO Pat Pacious, who spoke to HOTELS at the ALIS investment conference in Los Angeles Monday. “Most of the industry has outsourced reservation systems, and we have always been someone who looked at it and said our core value proposition for franchisees was our ability to deliver business. And a lot of that is digitally delivered today.”
“We’re long-term holders with a long-term view,” Pacious added. “The technology was there to do it in way that we think is going to set us up for the world of personalization, artificial intelligence, data mining, all those things that are coming today. When you try to do that with the old infrastructure, it’s very expensive and very time-consuming.”
The company started deploying the technology several months ago, according to Pacious, and should have all properties on board by the first quarter of 2018. He declined to talk specifics on projected ROI.
“These things: The last one lasted 30 years, so the ROI is pretty high when you’re talking tens of millions of dollars that’s going to support some US$7 billion worth of transactions,” he said.
The cloud-based platform will manage distribution for Choice, optimizing rate, inventory, availability, shopping, booking and reservations for its website, mobile apps and third-party distribution partners.
Because the data exists on the cloud, Choice won’t have to run a disaster recovery site, Pacious said, which cuts in half the cost of having a site sitting in case the main website were to crash.
This project, which began in 2014, allows the company to offer faster-to-market new products, features and third-party connectivity; preconfigured connectivity with online travel agents, global distribution systems and property management systems; and the capability to add selling disparate inventory types, including hotel rooms, meeting rooms, vacation rentals and package offerings.