HotelREZ to make India the APAC hub

HotelREZ, the UK-based hotel representation and travel solution provider has plans to make India the hub for its Asia-Pacific-centric activities. The Delhi office of HotelREZ will coordinate for all activities related with the region in future.

Confirming the development, HotelREZ officials state that it is in the process of moving major infrastructure from UK to India. “While the UK office will continue to look after the European and US markets, the Delhi office will take care of activities in the Asia Pacific region. The move is basically to get rid of the time difference between UK and the Asia-Pacific countries. The time difference of almost 10 hours between UK and countries like Malaysia or Singapore is a major obstacle in maintaining contacts,” informs Sudhir Ghildiyal, Director of Revenue & Strategic Accounts, HotelREZ.

As part of the process, Ghildiyal says that negotiations with an Indian technology provider to relocate the servers from London to Mumbai are in the final stages. He also adds that HotelREZ’s accounts department will be moved from London to New Delhi. “All our invoices are being handled by a company called Centura in London. Now, we are on the lookout for a local accounts handling company in Delhi to handle our accounts. We feel that the quality we get here is far more superior and cost effective,” Ghildiyal added.

HotelREZ presently has 78 hotels operating under its different brands. “Most of our branded hotels are in the Southern states. We have 20 hotels in Bangalore alone, four in Chennai and 10 in Kerala. We are now targeting the entire country. Potential is huge. It won’t surprise me at all, if we grow from 70-odd hotels, to say 200 or 300 in the next two years,” says Ghildiyal.
Globally, HotelRez group offers a range of memberships starting from ‘Simply Hotels’ to ‘Elegant’, ‘Fashion Hotels’, and ‘Hotels 100’. As per Ghildiyal, negotiations are on with a few hotels in Delhi for membership under the ‘Fashion Hotels’ brand.

Elaborating on the various advantages that the membership brings to member hotels, Ghildiyal says that HotelREZ membership offers facilities starting from technology support to demand generation, distribution, connectivity, etc. “We have well-established service providers in the market, viz. Utel, Unirez and I-Hotelier. They provide distribution technology to the hotels. We are also into online marketing. We have tie ups with Travel Click, Sabre Spotlight, etc. Moreover, we have strategic tie ups with portals like Asia Travel.” According to Ghildiyal, it is also cost-effective for independent hotels to be part of the group, as they get mileage out of the different marketing platforms like WTM and FITUR.