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The post SiteMinder acquires GuestJoy appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily.

SiteMinder has announced it will acquire industry acclaimed hotel guest engagement suite GuestJoy, a cloud-based app that allows hoteliers to automate personalised, direct, contactless guest communications before, during and after their stay. 

The acquisition, to be completed this year, follows the launch of SiteMinder’s next-generation platform in April — an all-in-one hotel commerce platform that unifies SiteMinder’s channel management, distribution and booking engine products with real-time market insights, automated payments, website-building capabilities and more than 1500 partner integrations for accommodation providers to grow their businesses online. GuestJoy will further expand SiteMinder’s robust hotel commerce offering, allowing hoteliers to automate and digitise their guest communication, drive upsell revenues, and strengthen direct guest acquisition.

Sankar Narayan, CEO and MD of SiteMinder, said the agreement to acquire GuestJoy builds on a year of strong organic growth following the company’s IPO in 2021.

“We are thrilled to announce SiteMinder’s acquisition of GuestJoy this year. Great technology powers human connection, and this couldn’t be truer for hotel tech. GuestJoy is highly regarded within the hotel tech industry for its simple user experience, seamless guest communication functionalities and integration capabilities, which are essential for the modern hotelier to deliver a winning and profitable guest experience, while also optimising their booking and ancillary revenues. GuestJoy’s capability to automate and personalise guest communications will allow SiteMinder to offer a fully integrated user experience for our hoteliers, as we continue to deliver on our hotel commerce platform vision,” Sankar Narayan said.

Since 2014, GuestJoy has gained a strong reputation in the industry for its innovative, easy-to-use technology and for delivering high ROI for its customers. Founded by hospitality tech innovators Alar Ülem and Annika Ülem, GuestJoy was created to solve a key unmet need – to make it simpler and faster for hoteliers to communicate directly with their guests and increase customer value via their property management system.

“We know firsthand how distracting and cumbersome unfit technology can be while you are working hard to deliver an impeccable, memorable guest experience. It’s why we set ourselves the mission of designing GuestJoy to be very easy to use, using data-driven intelligence and automation. We also know that seamless, unified technology can transform hotel businesses, and this is why we are so proud that GuestJoy will become a SiteMinder company,” said GuestJoy Co-founder Alar Ülem.

“SiteMinder is unrivalled in its deep feature capabilities in hotel technology, and for its scale of connectivity in the hotel tech market. We can’t wait to join SiteMinder’s vision to bring every hotel into the new era of hotel commerce, by helping hoteliers connect meaningfully with their guests along every step of their accommodation journey,” said GuestJoy Co-founder Annika Ülem.

A SiteMinder Partner since 2017, GuestJoy is already a part of the SiteMinder ecosystem and will be fully integrated into the SiteMinder hotel commerce platform following the completion of the acquisition this year.

The post SiteMinder acquires GuestJoy appeared first on Travel Daily.

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The post Eurostar Group appoints Gwendoline Cazenave as chief executive officer appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily.

Eurostar Group has announced the appointment of Gwendoline Cazenave as CEO from 1st October. With 20 years of experience in rail transport, Gwendoline brings considerable expertise, energy and vision to make Eurostar Group and European high-speed rail a success for customers and colleagues.

As a partner at management consultancy Oliver Wyman for the last two years, Gwendoline has worked on the French and European transport and services markets, with a particular focus on strategy and transformation in the rail sector.

Prior to this, she was an executive at SNCF holding a range of high-level posts including Director of TGV Atlantique, the high-speed route operating in the southwest of France, Director of Finance, Strategy and Legal Affairs at SNCF Voyages and a variety of strategic and operational roles within SNCF’s regional transport arm, TER.

Gwendoline has held a number of important non-executive roles, with a focus and interest in gender equality and environmental initiatives, and these are two areas she will continue to drive forward within Eurostar Group. She will be committed to building on the existing culture of customer service excellence shared by Eurostar and Thalys.

The post Eurostar Group appoints Gwendoline Cazenave as chief executive officer appeared first on Travel Daily.

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The post Centara Korat: An all-in-one leisure and lifestyle destination in Northeastern Thailand appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily.

Designed to be your home away from home, Centara Korat is the ideal place to stay in Northeastern Thailand. With modern furnishings and contemporary equipment within the hotel, it is a leisure and lifestyle destination on its own.

The hotel is developed by Central Pattana and is operated to the highest international standards by Centara Hotels and Resorts, the leading hotel operator in Thailand. Here’s why Centara Korat is the ultimate destination in Nakhon Ratchasima.

Base in the northeast

Korat plays an important role in Thai history and culture and is located approximately a 3-hour-drive from Bangkok and is served by its own domestic airport.  The property sits on the main Mitrapap Road at the gateway to Isan, Ubon Ratchathani, Undon Thani, and other towns up north, making it the perfect basecamp when exploring the region.

The hotel features 218 well-appointed, contemporary rooms and suites designed with soft wooden furnishings and light tones. Selected rooms are equipped with a kitchenette complete with dinnerware. Centara Korat’s accommodations serve as a comforting haven for your integrated lifestyle holiday. The hotel is poised to cater to multi-generational families and long-stay guests up north.

Perfect MICE location

Centara Korat offers the perfect place to celebrate and socialise in style. Whether it is a cocktail party, a formal gala or a birthday celebration, Centara Korat’s well-equipped ballroom and hall are suited to events of all sizes. The hotel features a 590 sqm ballroom that can hold up to 325 guests. There are four additional meeting rooms ranging from 75 – 110 sqm.

The hotel also has access to a 7,000 sqm convention hall in adjacent Central Plaza Nakhon Ratchasima apt for much bigger events and conferences. Centara’s team of professionals will help you host your dream events and to provide a hassle-free experience when organising gatherings.

Region’s watering hole

Treat your palate to international cuisine and pastries at House of Kin, a contemporary all-day dining restaurant including international buffets, conceived to delight all generations and tastes. In English, “kin” means “family”, whilst in Thai, it means “eat”. Therefore, the House of Kin is where families eat. Offering premium seafood, hyper-local Korat cuisine, Japanese, Chinese and Western dishes, along with indulgent desserts from the Candy Bar, Centara Korat’s in-house restaurant is the ideal dining hotspot for friends & family gatherings, birthdays and celebrations.

Dubbed the centre of the community, Centara Korat is at the heart of it all. The hotel’s rooftop is the place to be when you visit the hotel. Take a dip in the scenic rooftop pool, lounge and enjoy snacks and refreshments in the Sky lounge and rooftop restaurants or enjoy an invigorating workout in our fully-equipped fitness centre, complete with training facilities and boxing and yoga classes.

Centara Korat is developed with business and leisure travellers in mind making the property an important edifice in the region. To celebrate its recent opening, the hotel has an introductory offer that includes:

Book Now

The post Centara Korat: An all-in-one leisure and lifestyle destination in Northeastern Thailand appeared first on Travel Daily.

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The post Qantas Site Crashes as Frequent Flyers Claim Goodwill Rewards appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily.

The Qantas frequent flyer website went down Monday morning as frequent flyers flocked to redeem the perks the airline had promised them as an apology for its recent lousy performance.

A Qantas spokeswoman said that the brief outage resulted from high traffic as members rushed to redeem a suite of new benefits, including discounted flights and extra lounge invites, announced over the weekend as an apology for delays, cancellations, and lost baggage problems that have disrupted travel recently.

A notice saying, “We are unable to process this request at this time” was shown to users, “Please try again later.”

Only the frequent flyer section of the Flying Kangaroo website experienced downtime, the company said Monday at 11:30 a.m.

On Sunday, CEO Alan Joyce issued a “formal apology” to loyal customers for the company’s difficulties in its post-pandemic struggles.

The high rates of sick leave, Mr. Joyce said, were due to influenza, COVID-19 episodes, and the need for self-isolation. He thanked travellers for their patience. He blamed a widespread labour shortage, saying that Qantas had to add 1,500 workers since April to make up for the shortfall and make other adjustments to its timetable.

Qantas has made up to 50% extra “classic reward” seats available to its frequent passengers that may be reserved with Qantas Points until 30 June 2023.

The benefits included a 12-month status extension for “silver” and above frequent flyer members, a $50 discount, additional lounge invites for “gold” category members, and more classic reward seats.

This open letter of apology follows a similar one sent by Qantas’ chief of domestic and international operations, Andrew David, a month ago.

A slew of issues has plagued Qantas in 2022, from lengthy phone wait times to Easter-day cancellations to the discovery that cabin crew on a Qantas A330 were forced to sleep across seats in economy. The Federal Court of Australia ruled against Qantas last year, saying the company was wrong to outsource 2,000 ground handling jobs, and then denied the airline’s first appeal.

According to official figures, Qantas cancelled 6.2% of its domestic flights in July, a decrease from the 7.5% it cancelled in June. A rise in delays meant that just 53% of aircraft landed on schedule, down from 59.4% in June.

The numbers, although still alarming, ended Qantas’ six-month record as the nation’s least reliable airline. The airline blamed the July problems on significant weather occurrences along the East Coast.

According to internal airline data, dependability increased in the first few weeks of this month, with two-thirds of flights leaving on schedule.

The post Qantas Site Crashes as Frequent Flyers Claim Goodwill Rewards appeared first on Travel Daily.

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