Revelex has been quietly expanding beyond its cruise base and debuted a Tour Negotiator booking engine for hotels, tours and activities, and cars, with Jackson Hole Central Reservations as the launch partner.
The Jackson Hole tourism site in Wyoming, using Tour Negotiator in the background, offers online hotel booking for the first time, and then gives travelers air, tours and activities and car rental options as add-ons.
Joe Romans, Revelex's vice president of sales, says each destination management organization or other customer can customize Tour Negotiator according to their own business rules, and with Jackson Hole Central Reservations a hotel booking is a mandatory starting point.
Revelex has traditionally been a cruise distribution and technology company, Romans says, but the company's hotel and tours and activities business is on the upswing.
For Jackson Hole Central Reservations, Tour Negotiator aggregates global distribution system content and a vendor extranet enables properties to manage inventory and rates, blackout dates and other requirements, Romans says.
"What is happening on the back end, is that all the properties are filtering through our hotel content management and inventory system for general content and pricing," Romans says. "This gives JHCR the ability to override the basic content being delivered by the distribution channel and allows them to create their own overviews, images, descriptions, recommendations etc."
The DMO also can create their own rate and availability rules, including "variables such as seasons, sub-seasons, commission structures, computation rules, cancellation rules, and payment rules," Romans says.
Prior to Jackson Hole Central Reservations' introduction of Tour Negotiator, the tourism organization, which is owned by hotels, took hotel bookings over the phone.
The Revelex solution adds online booking and dynamic packages to the mix, although a toll-free number to obtain pricing and availability information is prominantly displayed throughout the site.
If the site shows no availability for a room type, then the display defaults to the phone booking option for other selling opportunities.