CA Boardroom Elite 2017

, Boston, Miami, Las Vegas, and Orlando. In addition, they also created a new and unique way to book and save through the Unpublished Rate Program which has a patent pending. There are thousands of hotels that offer getaroom a better rate as long as the lower rate is not published. Getaroom guarantees that the rate booked online is the lowest rate available but if you pick up the phone, you can typically save another 10-20%. No one knows what the rate is because it is not published and only available through the call center. Although savings are typically 10-20%, the actual amount saved can be as high as 60%. Rates are dynamic and change all the time so participating hotels can adjust the rate based on occupancy needs. Commenting on the firm’s success, Diener stated: “We are excited to receive the Boardroom Elite Best Hotel & Reservation Website 2017 Award as we strive hard every day to bring consumers the very best deals in an easy to book format. We were awarded the “Best Hotel Booking Site” by Frommers several years ago and we are very proud of that award as we are with the Boardroom Elite Award. We believe these awards are a testament to the great value and service we bring to the marketplace.” When the firm first started it had a much larger focus on building the brand, but Diener and Litman found they were losing money because they did not have the product and scale to launch a national brand. They shifted their model to focus on the B to B market, providing back end technology and product for other travel companies. They quickly turned losses into profits and went back to building the brand after they expanded their product to a wide international product and had the scale to expand the brand profitably. They plan to greatly expand the brand further following the success it has enjoyed so far. “Many entrepreneurs can’t make the quick change when their model isn’t working and they double down on a losing model instead of changing. To be successful, you need to move quickly, measure every dollar of spend and adjust your model based on results”, says Diener. What truly sets getaroom apart is that they have inventory from many other travel sites so that in addition to contracting their own inventory, they show you the lowest rate available in the marketplace. They also show you the rate of the other major travel sites so you can be comfortable that you are booking the lowest rate. If another provider has a lower rate, that is the rate that is offered to you. Getaroom is a unique metasite. While the other metasites let you shop other travel sites, they just link you to the other travel site and you often do not know the site you are actually doing the booking on. With getaroom, you actually book on getaroom. Getaroom not only does the booking, but it provides the customer service to back it up. Getaroom is often praised by its customers for having the best customer service in the industry. So not only are you getting the best rate from many suppliers, you are also getting the best customer care. Another advantage of getaroom is that they offer not only hotels but all types of lodging including vacation rentals, condos, vacation homes, and B&Bs. These are all professionally managed and can be booked on a nightly basis without minimum week requirements. All of the properties have complete descriptions and photos and can be booked instantly. Out of the more than 160,000 properties on getaroom.com, over 30,000 are unique types of lodging and these are often the best values especially if you are traveling with a family and require more space, kitchen and more. For the price of a typical hotel room, the consumer often receives a large one or two-bedroom suite with kitchen, living room and much more. Overall, getaroom has three lines of business: its branded site and call centers, its VIP and partner membership programs, and it provides the back end and fulfillment for many major travel sites such as TripAdvisor and Kayak. These sites promote their brands while getaroom provides the product and fulfills the booking. Getaroom’s market management team contracts all types of lodging including chains, independent and alternate lodging worldwide and provides this inventory to its branded site, call centers and also to many major travel sites. Getaroom has unique technology enabling it to provide these sites with turn-key programs based on the needs of the travel site. These include API connectivity, private label sites, call center options and fulfillment. Alongside its core services, getaroom has a VIP program which is an invitation only program based on the profile of the traveler. Membership cannot be purchased or obtained other than by invitation from getaroom or a current member. In addition, getaroom provides private label and back end services to many membership programs. These membership programs are unique memberships where the members have login credentials to access the programs. Getaroom provides unique membership pricing for these programs which currently have over 100 million members. This channel provides hotels with a unique leisure audience of consumers that are in a fenced off marketplace that does not compete with the mainstream hotel shopper. This allows hotels to offer special rates and compete in a marketplace that does not impact their publically available rates. Members can only access these rates with credentials and this is a growing and different marketplace. Ultimately, the online travel business is a constantly changing and evolving environment and getaroom strives to be ahead of the changes. As such, the founders created a mobile booking site early on and are constantly improving the site to be quick and easy to use and book. They are innovating with flash sales, length of stay promotions (better rates for longer stays), last minute deals, advance purchase deals, better rates for non- refundable bookings and more. They are also adding unique properties such as vacation rentals and homes that were very difficult to book in the past and making them simple and easy to book. They are continuing to create new ways for consumers to save on their travel bookings. Through this focus on developing and enhancing its service offering, getaroom is expected to continue to grow at high rates for the foreseeable future as Diener and Litman add more markets and hotels, alternate lodging, as well as currencies and languages. The firm also intends to expand internationally and find new areas of the marketplace that have not yet been tapped. They are on pace to book over $1 billion in lodging next year and this is still only a small percent of the $600 billion global lodging market. Although they have had great growth of their brand, the firm spends less than 2% of their revenues on marketing the brand and this is a great opportunity for growth. With a nominal increase in spending because of their strong brand name and great values that they offer, they expect to have significant growth of the brand over the next few years. Finally, the firm has also barely tapped their membership market. They have over 100 million members in their internal and partner membership programs. Only a small portion of these members take advantage of the special values they offer and they believe they can greatly expand this marketplace by making members more aware of the service and values. As they expand this marketplace, they will bring their lodging partners incremental business from this unique market that they do not have access to, and expand the overall market for lodging. N