TravTalk India Online Magazine
‘Our aim is to create a special platform for offline travel agents to sell our inventory at the best available rates that aren’t available anywhere and help them have realistic margins,’ says Chandan Pandey, Co-Founder & COO, WB Hotels & Resorts. The brand does not charge any upfront payment and works on commissions only.
Hazel Jain
What is the concept behind this new brand ‘WB Hotels & Resorts’?
Launched in September 2020, WB Hotels & Resorts offers services to hotels, resorts, B&B, service apartments and townships. We offer them co-branding services on an online platform, complete revenue management, centralised reservations and account reconciliation. We offer software in a bundled package to asset owners, channel managers and cloud-based front offices. Technically, we are running the hotels remotely and we do not charge any upfront payment – we work on commissions only.
Your business strategy?
We like to fill the gap created after COVID in hospitality, especially in the budget segment hotels. Most of the hotels before COVID were on lease or a minimum guarantee of gross revenue kind of understanding. Due to the impact of COVID, we saw a rift starting to develop between lease owners and asset owners. Most of the hotel owners decided to operate their own hotel. Since the scenario is changing in the hotel room ecosystem where rooms are sold mostly online, there is only option left to get the hotel online and optimise. We have come up with the solution where we are offering co-branding only on all online platforms. We have 14 hotels under our brand and growing with 600+ keys. We are also working with our channel partners in ME, UK, USA and Africa markets.
Your distribution strategy?
Our aim is to create a special platform for offline travel agents to sell our inventory at the best available rates which are not available anywhere to offer them realistic margins.
Once they enrol on our platform, they will be able to get access to multiple hotels with multiple locations with form margins available for them. Presently, they struggle to sell offline due to tough competition given by some of the online platforms. Special rates will be available here that are cheaper than online rates. We are also working on a special platform for the offline travel agent.
