Online auction site snaps up Ubid4rooms
Australia’s largest online auction house, GraysOnline, will enter the accommodation market with an offer-based hotel reservation website after buying the Ubid4rooms.com portal.
From June, GraysOnline’s newly branded hotel booking site will allow the 1.1 million people who visit GraysOnline.com every month to purchase accommodation by making their best offer.
GraysOnline CEO, Cameron Poolman, said the website would help Australians and New Zealanders achieve significant savings on hotel bookings and also help hoteliers use controlled discounting to fill rooms that would otherwise have gone empty.
"Ubid’s business model is fully scalable and would suit most tourism product, both domestically and internationally," Poolman said.
Launched in 2008 by hotelier, Gary Berman, who will manage GraysOnline’s new travel division, the Ubid4rooms.com site currently features 1200 hotels, motels, apartments, holiday parks and B&Bs in Australia and NZ, including major hotel groups such as Rydges, Toga, Oaks, 8 Hotels, Best Western, Golden Chain, Chifley Hotels, Country Comfort, Choice Hotels and Leisure Inns.
"The growing success of Grays has been based on our ability to connect buyers and sellers online and that will underscore the way Ubid4rooms evolves into a mainstream way to buy accommodation," Poolman added.
Based on Ubid’s model of a "a vacant room is revenue lost forever", Grays’ accommodation site will differ from GraysOnline’s auction model as it will allow customers to make offers directly to hotels, with no competitive bidding.
The controlled discounting Grays will facilitate allows hotels to offer guests lower-than-advertised rates on a confidential, one-on-one basis without the agreed rates going public or affecting brand integrity.
Ubid4rooms will continue operating until the new site is launched.
Accommodation providers can list with GraysOnline by emailing [email protected]
Ian Jarrett
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