Reservation.Works - the creation

At Gimmonix, we consider it our primary job to optimize our clients’ processes and take care of the hard hurdles that stand in the way. We’re always searching out the problems and main things holding companies back. We consider how processes can be sped up, errors removed, and our customers’ lives made easier.

Understanding the bug

We first started noticing that many online travel agencies (OTAs) have sold-outs and booking failures after reviewing our Travolutionary customers’ booking data. Travolutionary significantly decreases OTAs’ time spent on integrating with their suppliers, to one single API integration. However, the data showed how outdated many processes within the booking flow are. The amount of booking errors, failed bookings, and sold-outs we saw on a day-to-day basis within the booking flow were negatively impacting suppliers’ and OTAs’ businesses.

Wanting to understand the source of these problems, we started to investigate. After verifying that it was not a bug within Travolutionary, we found that it was a problem within the distribution flow. We began looking into this further, and found that one of the main issues is that the displayed prices are not live. They stemmed from cached results. By the time a customer actually makes the booking and the API request is sent back to the supplier, the offer is often no longer available. The session from which the prices stemmed had expired.

Even though it wasn’t our bug, we couldn’t sit back and do nothing: we embarked on a quest to find a solution for sold-outs and booking failures.

The need for a new solution

This evolution led us to a tool called Reprice, the first step towards the creation of Reservation.Works. Reprice was an attempt to prolong session validity artificially: using a single API call to validate, instead of performing a new search, and comparing rooms to find an alternative rate proposition. It was a way to simplify the process and an attempt to decrease the amount of lost bookings. Unexpectedly, we noticed that Reprice often found better rates.

Instead of accepting this as a matter of fact, we recognized another possibility for optimization. A phase in the booking flow, previously untouched, where OTAs and suppliers can increase their revenue and re-route sold-outs, without interfering with the customers booking.

“We realized that we can invent a far more sophisticated solution, that not only overcomes sold-outs but also tackles the problem of inefficient purchasing,” our CEO, Andrew Spektor explains.

Creating Reservation.Works

With the advantage of having a live test platform, our Travolutionary API, we ran this solution with actual customers for a year to refine it and make sure it was market ready. This is how Reservation.Works was born.

OTAs and suppliers now have the optimal solution to decrease sold-outs and find the best possible rates to increase revenue and conversions. They can do this across all their suppliers, without impacting speed, adding to their overhead costs, or response times. This automatic, in-process application is dynamic and works in real time. It operates between suppliers and distributors, with no breakage points, and while nothing like this has ever existed before, it does now and we’re excited to see it transform companies.

To see how Reservation.Works came together visit http://reservation.works/.