A new travel tech platform is taking on booking websites to transform the accommodation industry and save hotels thousands.
Rezme (short for ‘reservations for me’) is a subscription-based software as a service (SAAS) platform that aims to help accommodation providers to design and manage their websites and digital channels to ensure a better online experience for consumers and encourage direct booking.
The start-up was created by two Melbourne entrepreneurs with loads of experience in the travel industry.
Co-founders Luke Young and Matt Taylor (pictured above) met in 2013 at Choice Hotels’ Asia-Pacific headquarters, where Taylor was general manager of marketing, and Young advised on website development and customer acquisition.
Taylor said online travel agency sites such as Booking.com, Expedia and Trivago have had a significant impact on hotel bookings in recent years, taking increasing commissions and affecting hotel profitability and ultimately, rates.
“Rezme aims to revolutionise the way hotels interact with their customers and support these business owners to improve their direct channel where consumers will almost always get the best rate in market,” he said.
“It’s not going too far to say we want to disrupt both the global hotel industry and the OTAs that have driven profit margins down.”
The tech has a simple, intuitive ‘drag-and-drop’ interface that brings all of a business’ communication channels to one platform with some snazzy tools such as an easy website builder, social media management and email marketing.
It can also translate into over 100 languages making communicating with international travellers a piece of cake.
Rezme has been trialling its platform in 25 hotels over the past six months, and is looking to raise $800,000 to enable further development of the platform, with new features and integrations to be added so the full service can be available to an initial target of 1,000 Australian accommodation providers in the next two years.
