Red Lion Hotels Corporation Archives |

Best Western Hotels & Resorts Is the Latest Hotel Brand to Get Into the Solution Provider Business

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 21:19:41 +0000

Major hotel groups becoming major technology solution providers by either buying other companies or launching their own subsidiaries has become a trend. For the past five years, for example, Choice Hotels has made its hotel property management system available under its SkyTouch Technology subsidiary to any hotelier in the world, including its direct competitors. So far, more than 750 non-Choice hoteliers have become customers.

Earlier this year, Red Lion Hotels (RLH), perhaps inspired by the success of Choice Hotels, formed a subsidiary to compete in a crowded technology solution provider arena that includes hotel property management systems. In March, the company unveiled the launch of RLabs, with the stated goal of building new technology platforms for the hospitality industry including software, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Its first offering, Canvas Integrated Systems, is being billed as “an all-in-one cloud-based hospitality management suite” featuring a collection of seamlessly-integrated tools designed to drive revenue, secure more revenue opportunities, automate channel management and reduce cost and friction for independent hotel owners.

Similarly, Standard Hotels recently launched a unit charged with developing and marketing a mobile-first online travel service, called One Night, for independent boutique hotels.

Now Best Western Hotels & Resorts (BWHR), which operates over 4,100 hotels and motels worldwide, is also getting into the technology solution provider game, today announcing the acquisition of hotel PMS company AutoClerk, Inc. The acquisition reportedly marks a major milestone in BWHR’s efforts to simplify distribution for its hotels by making technology management, revenue management, customer relationship management, reporting and connectivity simpler and easier.

“This acquisition will enable BWHR to enhance its competencies in an increasingly complex distribution landscape to drive benefits to its hotels with faster and more reliable connectivity,” said BWHR President and CEO David Kong in a statement. “It will also allow us to implement technology solutions to help our hotels become more effective in servicing its guests, simplify management of rates and inventory and improve management reporting.”

BWHR, which is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, has been on growth spurt lately, expanding its portfolio to 16 brands across virtually every chain scale segment, including luxury, with the purchase of WorldHotels in February. The acquisition added approximately 300 hotels to its portfolio.

The company reports that a key focus for its success has been on ensuring it has a robust, resilient, secure and scalable distribution platform. Why the decision was made to acquire AutoClerk as opposed to continuing to partner with the solution provider makes sense only in the context of making the platform capabilities available to hotel brands not associated with BWHR. And that, of course, is the plan.

BWHR indicated that it plans to make sizable investments in the system’s infrastructure and development resources to improve system performance. It also plans to provide connectivity solutions and integration capabilities to AutoClerk’s customers regardless of their brand affiliation.

Non-BWHR customers may be pleased with the acquisition. “The products and solutions offered by AutoClerk, a preferred PMS technology that AAHOA members can access for an affordable price, will only grow stronger with BWHR’s backing,” said Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) Interim President and CEO Rachel Humphrey.

Autoclerk has been serving hoteliers since 1986. In 2003, it became one of the first solution providers in the industry to launch a successful web-booking tool for hoteliers, and myHMS pioneered web-based property management solutions. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Red Lion Hotels Gets Into the Hotel Technology Solutions Business

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 15:10:37 +0000

It’s not the first time that a major hotel group has launched and marketed a new technology solution. For the past five years, for example, Choice Hotels has made its hotel property management system available under its SkyTouch Technology subsidiary to any hotelier in the world, including its direct competitors. So far, more than 750 non-Choice hoteliers have become customers. More recently, Standard Hotels launched a unit developing a mobile-first online travel service, called One Night, for independent boutique hotels.

Still, it remains unusual that a major hotel group would form a subsidiary to compete in a crowded technology solution provider arena that includes hotel property management systems. But that’s exactly what Red Lion Hotels (RLH) has announced it will be doing, perhaps inspired by the success of Choice Hotels. Last week, the company unveiled the launch of RLabs, with the stated goal of building new technology platforms for the hospitality industry including software, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

The first offering from RLabs is Canvas Integrated Systems, which, not unlike the Skytouch offering, is being billed as “an all-in-one cloud-based hospitality management suite” featuring a collection of seamlessly-integrated tools designed to drive revenue, secure more revenue opportunities, automate channel management and reduce cost and friction for independent hotel owners.

While the integration of best-of-breed solutions is hardly a new concept, the company makes the bold claims that it will utilize technology not currently accessible by most independent hotels to provide revenue management, channel management and global sales at the fraction of the price of existing options. According to a company spokesperson, Canvas Integrated Systems will provide additional platform capabilities such as personalized loyalty programs and keyless entry.

The company has stated that it expects that Canvas Integrated Systems will be able to provide a savings of up to 50 percent over what typical independent hotels are currently paying, and potentially even more for hotels that are part of a soft brand. Those are high expectations and should provide a significant competitive advantage if the company can deliver.

Reduced cost of ownership is a big part of the value proposition. According to RLH, hotel operators will receive many of the advantages and transactional costs of a well-established larger system structure without having to incur costs and meet expensive brand standards required by soft brands.

Not surprisingly, Red Lion Hotels is the first customer. Seven Red Lion hotels will begin using Canvas Integrated Systems early this year, with the first hotel, Monterey Tides, said to have already implemented the system in December. No word yet on how well the new solution is performing.

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Red Lion Hotels Roars Ahead with IDeaS G3 Revenue Management System

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:36:57 +0000

Red Lion Hotels Corporation, doing business as RLH Corporation, focuses on the franchising, management and ownership of upscale, midscale and economy hotels under the Hotel RL, Red Lion Hotel, Red Lion Inn & Suites, GuestHouse and Settle Inn brands. Today RLH ranks as one of the fastest-growing hotel franchise companies in North America with Red Lion, with 90,000 rooms across more than 1,400 properties under management.

The company continues to expand its portfolio of properties while working to maximize revenues and profitability for shareholders. Earlier this year, RLH Corporation announced it had reached an agreement with Wyndham Worldwide to acquire the Knights Inn brand for $27 million.

Looking ahead to 2019, the company has set a transformational goal for itself: build a culture around commercial revenue strategy and adopt technology that breaks down organizational silos across sales and marketing. To help achieve that lofty goal, the company has entered into a partnership with IDeaS Revenue Solutions.

The IDeaS G3 Revenue Management System (RMS) is designed to automate pricing and inventory control across room types, properties and portfolios. By tapping into SAS® analytics, artificial intelligence and deep machine-learning, IDeaS G3 RMS frees up revenue managers from arduous tactical duties, enabling them to be more strategic about growing revenue. This results in dramatically smarter pricing decisions and greater revenue over time.

According to reports, RLH Corporation plans to align its revenue management, pricing and yielding insights with marketing and sales to create a more powerful overarching commercial strategy using IDeaS. The IDeaS platform is designed to enable revenue strategists to focus their time and effort on aligning business strategies across departments such as sales and marketing.

The belief is the platform will provide RLH Corporation with a formidable competitive advantage in a market that seeing increasing complexity of booking channels and more competition from hotel brands.

According to a spokesperson for RLH Corporation, IDeaS was selected, in part, because of the solution’s ability to automate pricing down to the individual rate code and room type rather than centering all pricing decisions around a single retail or BAR price point. This level of detail is crucial, according to RLH, because true commercial optimization must consider a multiplicity of demand variables and respond to each accordingly. This level of adaptability and granularity provides RLH with a real-time understanding of changing demand.

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