Thaivisa.com launches own Hotel Booking service

[webfact]

Thaivisa.com launches own Hotel Booking service

 

 

Travel within Thailand has never been cheaper from buses, trains to domestic flights, and with so much to see and do throughout the country there really is no excuse for not exploring Thailand more.  

 

Thaivisa.com is already recognised as the go to place for all things Thailand for foreigners staying or visiting Thailand, from crucial visa immigration to Thailand news. And now Thaivisa.com are delighted to announce their new ‘Thaivisa Exclusive Hotel Bookings’ service to better serve their customers.

 

“We want to help make it easier for people to explore this amazing country by negotiating special room rates with hotels all across the country” states Dan Cheeseman, MD for Thaivisa.com, “We will be also be running extra special discounts on listed hotel prices to all those subscribed to our Thaivisa daily eNewsletters – sometimes discounting up to 20% more on the already low price.”

 

Further more, Thaivisa Exclusive Hotel Bookings will have feeds from sister media Inspire, to show consumers what events and offers are coming up in each particular region; so you then know what to do when you travel to a particular region.

 

To celebrate this launch we are offering customers a 5% discount on all bookings, just type 'thaivisa' in promo code section

 

This new service is TAT registered and can be visited directly at www.hotels.thaivisa.com 

 

-- Thaivisa.com 2017-02-01

[sebastion]

Very late to the party but good luck.

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

[TheFishman1]

Great what will they think of next maybe more advertising TIT

[madmitch]

Had a quick look. With a whole eight properties in Phuket I don't think Priceline or Expedia will be quaking in their boots just yet! 

[Get Real]

Not so good now, but maybe get better with time. Have to stay watching.

[simon43]

There is one problem with operating a 'standalone' online hotel booking service.  Many (most?) of the hotels use a 'Channel Manager' software application to automatically manage their allocation of available rooms.  If a new guest books a room via Agoda, then the Channel Manager will automatically log into the extranet for booking.com, Expedia etc and adjust the number of available rooms.  So the hotel can maximise their exposure across many online booking websites and not worry about getting overbooked - the Channel Manager takes care of everything.

 

But with a bespoke online booking service, unless the admin interface is supported by the third party Channel Manager, (and it will not be if it is a new service), all updates of room bookings and allocations have to be manually processed by the hotel admin staff ==> a lot (A LOT!) of work.

 

That's why the preferred route is to 'white-label' an existing booking service, such as Agoda or booking.com.  (The end-user also gets the benefit of the complete range of hotels).

 

A bespoke service really only works when it targets a niche market, such as 'Great Hotels of the World', where the revenue generated from upmarket guest rooms can justify the software coding and integration with the Channel Manager.

 

I hope ThaiVisa have thought through this business model for their new booking site :)

Edited February 1, 2017 by simon43

[cheapcanuck]

Checked Bangkok...not to many hotels to choose from. No filters so can't sort out options. Needs a lot of work to bring up to other websites.  

[backtofront]

There is a need for better information about unorthodox travel destinations and more proactive customer service.

 

We have a homestay in Nong Prue Kanchanaburi. Booking.com haved moved the entire district to around about Lat Ya, chose to rename it Ban Nong Pru and their support is so far and no further. As for Agoda they plonked us in Bo Phloi, shut up the office and pull down the blinds every time I try to contact them.

 

Hope this works and grows. 

[spambot]

58 minutes ago, simon43 said:

There is one problem with operating a 'standalone' online hotel booking service.  Many (most?) of the hotels use a 'Channel Manager' software application to automatically manage their allocation of available rooms.  If a new guest books a room via Agoda, then the Channel Manager will automatically log into the extranet for booking.com, Expedia etc and adjust the number of available rooms.  So the hotel can maximise their exposure across many online booking websites and not worry about getting overbooked - the Channel Manager takes care of everything.

 

But with a bespoke online booking service, unless the admin interface is supported by the third party Channel Manager, (and it will not be if it is a new service), all updates of room bookings and allocations have to be manually processed by the hotel admin staff ==> a lot (A LOT!) of work.

 

That's why the preferred route is to 'white-label' an existing booking service, such as Agoda or booking.com.  (The end-user also gets the benefit of the complete range of hotels).

 

A bespoke service really only works when it targets a niche market, such as 'Great Hotels of the World', where the revenue generated from upmarket guest rooms can justify the software coding and integration with the Channel Manager.

 

I hope ThaiVisa have thought through this business model for their new booking site :)

Excellent post. Pivotal point.

[oxo1947]

Does the 30 second "nag" screen come up before you can pay them some money for the room......

[Jack Mountain]

My experience with booking sites is that when they say the hotel is full they actually mean that the rooms they mediate for are sold out. 

When you call the hotel directly then there where still rooms available.

Looks like the same system as with airplane chairs.

 

But it's good to have a price indication and then these sites are usefull.

 

[backtofront]

How does one get listed?

[khunPer]

Wish you good luck – but hope you'll improve – checked Ko(h) Samui and two hotels came up, both very remote from main activities on the island, and the closest to some, but far from beach, had "fan" and "heating" for an introduction discounted price of little over 2500 baht a night for a room for 2 persons; I would rather prefer "aircon", to be honest.

 

Afraid it may be difficult to find users to a new hotel-booking-portal compared to the offers in already established hotel-booking-portals – I'm very positive for you efforts, but also realistic – for affordable 2,500 baht a night there a numerous fine possibilities at Koh Samui. The other option was in the 8,000 baht range, so might be why it's located more "private" and far from everything else, but a beach.

[NoshowJones]

40 minutes ago, Jack Mountain said:

My experience with booking sites is that when they say the hotel is full they actually mean that the rooms they mediate for are sold out. 

When you call the hotel directly then there where still rooms available.

Looks like the same system as with airplane chairs.

 

But it's good to have a price indication and then these sites are usefull.

 

This could be a very good thing if Thaivisa gets it right, ie, give the full price instead of the Agoda nonsense of giving the price before the added taxes of 17%.

[kmj]

1 hour ago, spambot said:

Excellent post. Pivotal point.

Edited because to Wrong post

Edited February 1, 2017 by kmj

[kmj]

2 hours ago, simon43 said:

There is one problem with operating a 'standalone' online hotel booking service.  Many (most?) of the hotels use a 'Channel Manager' software application to automatically manage their allocation of available rooms.  If a new guest books a room via Agoda, then the Channel Manager will automatically log into the extranet for booking.com, Expedia etc and adjust the number of available rooms.  So the hotel can maximise their exposure across many online booking websites and not worry about getting overbooked - the Channel Manager takes care of everything.

 

But with a bespoke online booking service, unless the admin interface is supported by the third party Channel Manager, (and it will not be if it is a new service), all updates of room bookings and allocations have to be manually processed by the hotel admin staff ==> a lot (A LOT!) of work.

 

That's why the preferred route is to 'white-label' an existing booking service, such as Agoda or booking.com.  (The end-user also gets the benefit of the complete range of hotels).

 

A bespoke service really only works when it targets a niche market, such as 'Great Hotels of the World', where the revenue generated from upmarket guest rooms can justify the software coding and integration with the Channel Manager.

 

I hope ThaiVisa have thought through this business model for their new booking site :)

 

All channel managers allow new OTA's to add themselves to thier systems just need a good API coder, I have done this work 3 times as well as integate CM's to PMS's

 

[Rimmer]

A couple of troll posts have been trashed

[jerojero]

Had a quick look. With a whole eight properties in Phuket I don't think Priceline or Expedia will be quaking in their boots just yet! 

Nor Agoda or Booking.com

[madmitch]

8 hours ago, Jack Mountain said:

My experience with booking sites is that when they say the hotel is full they actually mean that the rooms they mediate for are sold out. 

When you call the hotel directly then there where still rooms available.

Looks like the same system as with airplane chairs.

 

But it's good to have a price indication and then these sites are usefull.

 

This happens much less so nowadays due to the increased use of Channel Manager software (see Simon's post). Hotels' own websites are also linked. 

1 hour ago, jerojero said:

Nor Agoda or Booking.com

Both part of Priceline.

Edited February 1, 2017 by madmitch

[simon43]

Excellent post. Pivotal point.

 

Thanks.  Many years ago, I almost went completely mad trying to manually update my hotel availability on 10 different OTAs :)

 

All channel managers allow new OTA's to add themselves to thier systems just need a good API coder, I have done this work 3 times as well as integate CM's to PMS's

 

I wish that were true, but it is not.  Many of the major Channel Managers still do not publish their API interface spec.  I'm a coder and the only way to integrate a non-supported website is to 'screen-scrape' and datamine the Channel Manager webpages, (which is a horribly-unreliable way create an interface.....).

 

I did think a few years ago to create an open-source (GNU) Channel Manager - perhaps one exists now?

[sometimewoodworker]

No name search for hotels, and every 10 to 30 seconds a "there was a fault so had to reload the page" error.

[kmj]

15 hours ago, simon43 said:

 

 

 

Thanks.  Many years ago, I almost went completely mad trying to manually update my hotel availability on 10 different OTAs :)

 

 

 

 

I wish that were true, but it is not.  Many of the major Channel Managers still do not publish their API interface spec.  I'm a coder and the only way to integrate a non-supported website is to 'screen-scrape' and datamine the Channel Manager webpages, (which is a horribly-unreliable way create an interface.....).

 

I did think a few years ago to create an open-source (GNU) Channel Manager - perhaps one exists now?

I've just finished intergrating hoteliercloud with SiteMinder, MyAllocator, YeildPlanet and ezeecentrix channel managers and all it took to access their API's was a request email and signed NDA

 

Now if you go direct to the OTA's yes true you have to go to the back of a long line of applicants and the approval procedure is complex.

 

[kiwikeith]

On ‎1‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 10:21 AM, Get Real said:

Not so good now, but maybe get better with time. Have to stay watching.

From all the time I ever looked at TV's hotels or expat 6% fixed term deposits I never ever found them to offer anything that resembled a better deal.

It is better to approach hotels and airlines and banks directly.

If you see a cheap room in a hotel and ring the hotel they sometimes are even cheaper, if not quote the internet and they match it.

Going to airlines own web site often is cheaper, more than often cheaper than cheap air fare sites.

 

As far as investment goes, I personally brokered the best deal ever offered by internet advice by talking to the bank itself.

Unless your stupid and invest in finance companies you get what you deserve.

[Get Real]

6 hours ago, kiwikeith said:

From all the time I ever looked at TV's hotels or expat 6% fixed term deposits I never ever found them to offer anything that resembled a better deal.

It is better to approach hotels and airlines and banks directly.

If you see a cheap room in a hotel and ring the hotel they sometimes are even cheaper, if not quote the internet and they match it.

Going to airlines own web site often is cheaper, more than often cheaper than cheap air fare sites.

 

As far as investment goes, I personally brokered the best deal ever offered by internet advice by talking to the bank itself.

Unless your stupid and invest in finance companies you get what you deserve.

I know all that. My post merly pointed at the so far small amount of choises and the functionality of the website. All other things are almost always better like you say.