Nor1, a provider of hospitality upgrade, upsell and merchandising
technology, says its new inventory-based banner feature is helping hotels make
better use of their data to compete more effectively with online travel
agencies such as Expedia and Booking.com during the buying process.
Nor1 works with brands such as Hilton, IHG, Radisson
Hospitality, AccorHotels and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. CEO Jason Bryant
says about 90% of Nor1’s clients are using the new banners and are seeing
conversion rates above 25%.
The banners use triggers such as scarcity and popularity of
offers, based on data Nor1 pulls in directly from hotel inventory, to spur
guests’ buying behavior.
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“The hotelier has all these buyer transaction data points - they just haven’t been leveraging it. So we’re helping them leverage all those
buying decisions in such a way that the guest will get a richer experience through
this direct channel than they would through an OTA,” Bryant says.
“An OTA cannot offer in as sophisticated a fashion or a data-rich presentation that we can give to the guest on behalf of the hotel for
upsells, for ancillary offers.”
Bryant says Nor1’s two-way integration with hotels gives it real-time
inventory data that OTAs do not have, which limits OTAs' ability to provide
accurate offers.
“If they say ‘not many left,’ that’s different than ‘one or two left.’ You have to be careful with that. There has to be a direct,
real-time feed into inventory in order to state absolute numbers. Trust is a
huge issue."