Impala launches Deals platform: Businesses can now negotiate discounted rates with multiple hotels in minutes – not weeks – at the touch of a button
- Impala’s new Deals platform allows any online travel agency (OTA) to negotiate discounted room rates with hotels in 56 countries at the click of a button
- Instead of making countless sales calls and drafting complex contracts with individual hotels, Impala customers can manage negotiated rates quickly, and in real time – reducing the time from around three weeks to five minutes
- All while empowering OTAs and hotels to instantly respond to demand – a feature set to prove vital as the travel industry recovers from Covid
- Promotions can be turned on, and off, in minutes allowing agencies to offer time-sensitive deals from hotels, for instance, create bespoke packages, respond to market changes, and get greater visibility over the success of deals
- By joining Impala, businesses are automatically plugged into a network of partner hotels and customers can check availability and make bookings all in one place
London, May 2021: Impala – the travel platform democratising the hospitality industry with its hotel API – has launched its Deals platform that allows businesses to negotiate discounted rates with multiple hotels in real time. All at the touch of a button from a single dashboard.
Impala deals enabled us as a startup to reach and negotiate with independent hotels and large chains for our unique Secret Rooms product, enabling our guests to get discounted rates for last minute stays
Joakim Hultin
Co-founder and CEO, Sidehide
Rather than competing with larger brands on the same public rates, which effectively sees businesses lose customers to those which have more money to pay for marketing, Impala gives its customers a competitive edge. It presents businesses as well as hotels the opportunity to set a point of difference for travellers; to offer them something unique that can’t be found elsewhere. A competitive edge that will be crucial as the industry recovers in wake of Covid and responds to the lifting of restrictions.
“Impala deals enabled us as a startup to reach and negotiate with independent hotels and large chains for our unique Secret Rooms product, enabling our guests to get discounted rates for last minute stays,” said Joakim Hultin, Co-founder and Sidehide CEO, an innovative hotel booking app offering one-click bookings & speedy check-in.
Until Impala’s solution, travel agents and hotels would have had to spend weeks going back and forth managing fixed rates in clunky spreadsheets. Contracts would be drafted months or years in advance to avoid having to repeat it every few weeks.
Every feature we develop and launch at Impala is designed to remove the many, many pain points seen across the hospitality industry
Ben Stephenson
Founder and CEO, Impala
This left no room to react to changing market conditions, such as the impact of a global pandemic; no way of responding to changes in demand; and no way to appeal and attract different customer types with timely or relevant promotions.
“Every feature we develop and launch at Impala is designed to remove the many, many pain points seen across the hospitality industry,” said Ben Stephenson, Impala’s CEO and founder. “Our Deals platform furthers this mission. It attempts to level the playing field by allowing any business and any hotel to quickly, and flexibly, negotiate custom rates, instead of battling it out for public ones, to provide a competitive edge at a time when the industry still needs support to get back on its feet. By giving businesses of any size – from startup travel agents to enterprise hospitality giants – better, more efficient, less complex tools, everyone benefits. Not just the businesses, hotels and their customers, but the vast number of other industries and sectors that rely on tourism.”
Real-time deals in minutes
The lengthy back and forth in negotiations and contracting is replaced by a simple deals request tool. Businesses set their preferred discount rate, commission rate, how long they want the promotion to last, and other requests – such as free drinks on arrival; free dinner; free room upgrades and many more – before sending to one or hundreds of hotels simultaneously.
Hotels can accept the terms or reject a request, or negotiate different terms. Every stage of these negotiations and subsequent partnerships are instantly accessed, and managed via a single Impala dashboard for both hotels and sellers.
For instance, a travel agency looking to increase bookings around Valentine’s Day can request discounted rates from a hotel, or ask the hotel to offer incentives such as free dinners, reduced spa treatments and more.
These benefits directly improve conversion rates and the potential for repeat bookings for hotels, create new or improved distribution channels for both parties, while giving customers more choice and affordability at a time when confidence among travellers may be low.
The Deals platform is the latest product launch from a company dedicated to helping the hospitality industry thrive, both in the wake of Covid and beyond. Impala’s platform can be integrated into any existing website or apps and, once integrated, any business is automatically plugged into Impala’s global network of partner hotels, including Meliá Hotels, NH Hotels, Iberostar and Starhotels properties. This enables them to show availability, prices, upgrade options and now deals, all in real time.
ENDS
