REZsolutions is a major news, although not the "big one" we are all anticipating. A little background on a company many people have never heard of.
REZsolutions is in fact the 2000 pound gorilla in an industry most people never see - the hotel intermediary distribution industry. This is the industry that coordinates the flow of information and reservations between bookers (travelers, travel agents, corporations, meeting planners, etc.) and hotels. Specifically REZsolutions and its competitors handle reservations almost anywhere that the hotel or its chain doesn't -- including voice, licensing of reservations software, electronic distribution via traditional channels, and electronic distribution by the Internet. They also handle the reservations processing for many major chains on an outsourcing basis.
REZsolutions was formed a little over a year ago by the merger of Utell International, the world's largest hotel representation company, and Anasazi, a software and services house that built the dominant hotel reservations technology in use in the hotel industry today, and that also built a significant business in handling reservations processing (both technology and call center) for hotel companies. Go take a look at the web site, rez.com, look around for its client list, and you'll see just how powerful this company is.
When you make a reservation at Hilton, Howard Johnson, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate Inns, Travelodge, Nikko Hotels, Loews Hotels, Four Seasons, Forte Hotels, Leading Hotels of the World, Fairmont Hotels, Amerisuites, and many other chains, it is handled by REZsolutions technology. If you make a telephone reservation with many of these companies you are talking to a REZsolutions employee. If a travel agent needs a room in an unfamiliar city the first place they turn to is Utell, a REZsolutions brand.
So what does all this mean for VDAT? Beyond the website link mentioned in the press release, Utell deals with 6500 hotels and promotes a number of worldwide media opportunities through a workbook distributed annually. It's several hundred pages, very slick, and hotels go through it and select the media opportunities they are interested in. REZsolutions negotiates favorable rates with the media and places the media on behalf of the hotels, coordinating the logistics and passing along a portion of the savings.
REZsolutions is turning its focus to the Internet for hotel bookings, and emphasizing the importance of that channel. So I would hope to see a very positive positioning for HotelView in the REZsolutions/Utell lineup.
Furthermore, REZsolutions has very senior level relationships with its chain clients because they are a major service provider in a critical area. David Chestler, HotelView GM, used to work for Utell before they merged with REZsolutions, and you can bet he'll know how to leverage any success he has with REZsolutions into the major chain accounts.
All this will take some time, but properly exploited this will far outweigh all of the HotelView activity to date.
Nice work, David.
JMHO.
dr |
