In a move that we believe will help transform the future of the meetings and conferences industry in Asia Pacific, Expedia and Minor Hotels today announced a strategic alliance that will expand collaboration between the two organisations.
Through this collaboration, hotels under Minor Hotels’ Anantara and Oaks brands will go ‘live’ with Expedia’s white-label MICE technology. By visiting the hotels’ websites, customers can instantly check availability and pricing information and independently configure and book meeting rooms, accommodation, food and equipment with just a few clicks. The dynamic platform accelerates and simplifies a process which has been largely manual, inefficient and time-consuming for hotels and event-planners.
The MICE solution is the first tool that truly automates the booking process for meeting organizers and hotels in real time, making RFPs a thing of the past. Anantara and Oaks hotels can increase MICE sales efficiency by integrating Expedia’s MICE online booking engine on their website, allowing customers to configure and directly book their meeting, including group lodging, online. This technology further enables hoteliers to yield prices for meetings and groups, based on multiple dynamic criteria to increase revenue.
Marcos Cadena, VP of Digital, E-Commerce & Electronic Distribution, Minor Hotels commented,“Customers are becoming accustomed to immediate accessibility and will expect their brand experiences to be personalized and easy to navigate. By strategically automating our MICE business using Expedia’s best-in-class technology, we can drive greater MICE sales efficiency and deliver higher customer satisfaction across our brands.”
Maxim El Masri, Senior Director, Global Partner Group (Asia Pacific), the Expedia group, said “Expedia’s MICE solution presents a huge technological leap from the manual, inefficient processes that still exist widely within the hotel meetings industry. We’re excited about this new collaboration with Minor Hotels, which sees us harness our expertise in technology for the benefit of our hotel partners. We believe this new solution will benefit many hotels across Asia Pacific and around the world.”
Minor Hotels is the first hotel group to launch Expedia’s white-label MICE solution in Asia Pacific following Expedia’s earlier success in Europe. Last year, Best Western was the first global chain to launch in Germany with more than 300 hotels, enabling them to offer guestrooms and meeting space to travel bookers through their sites.
