Globa.li, boutique travel’s first business-to-business global distribution marketplace, announced their launch to African hoteliers last week. Globa.li is an easy-to-use software application that distributes hotel room inventory to the travel trade, while also allowing hoteliers and tour operators to manage trade relationships and sales.
Globa.li’s launch marks the first time a distribution platform of its kind has been available to small-to-medium sized hotels at such a minimal cost. The tool is completely free for travel agents and operators to use, and charges a small flat fee per room booked to hoteliers. While the distribution solution has already launched to hotels, it will open to approved global distributors on July 1st, 2014.
“Globa.li connects real-time inventory from hundreds of the best hotels across Africa, many which have never been bookable online before, with travel agents, tour operators and other distributors from around the world,” said Sarah Fazendin, CEO of Globa.li. “Over the past year we have worked hand-in-hand with hotels and travel distributors to build this innovative new hotel reservations technology, and I couldn’t be more proud of the team’s work and outstanding collaboration from the boutique travel industry.”
Globa.li allows boutique hotels to:
· Manage trade negotiations, set purchasing terms and commissions (based off rack rates)
· Maintain multi-level distribution chains
· Be discovered by new travel specialists
· Manage inventory, accept and track payments
· Use Globa.li’s property management system at no additional cost
· Communicate with agents and operators
Most uniquely, travel specialists can book multi-stop, customized itineraries in minutes through Globa.li’s patent-pending search engine, which aggregates real-time hotel inventory of top properties around the world.
Globa.li allows boutique tour operators and agents to:
· Search space available from multiple hotels on the dates requested based on robust search criteria
· See pricing for both the consumer and themselves (the agent) through rack and net prices
· Book or hold inventory with either: hotels or partner packagers
· Make payments through Globa.li’s payment partner, eNett
The company is launching first to African hoteliers and African packagers worldwide, and later plans to expand to other emerging markets like Latin America and Asia. Aggregated inventory is being managed by integrations with Property Management Systems as well as through Globa.li’s internal interface.
“Because Globa.li uniquely helps high-end travel specialists book multi-stop itineraries via a robust search, we’re rolling out Globa.li regionally. We selected Africa as our first market due to its inherent complexity, such as transfer logistics, hotel pricing models, and custom nature of itineraries,” said Maisa Fernandez, COO and Co-founder. “Over a year in the making, our technology was built from the ground up to meet these distinct exotic destination needs. I am excited about what Globa.li will do for so many hoteliers and travel packagers who spend more time emailing back and forth, instead of selling more product.”
With no cost or risk to sign up, boutique hotels and packagers may now apply at http://www.globa.li.
ABOUT: Globa.li is a technology provider to the boutique travel industry. Globa.li’s hotel booking software and distribution solutions are used by hundreds of hotels and distributors to manage critical operations, such as inventory management, hotel reservations, rate negotiations and business relationships. For more information please visit www.globa.li, email info@globa.li or via Twitter at @goglobali.
