Hotel Trader's 20,000 hotels join Shiji's Book&Pay marketplace

Hotel Trader has connected its hotel exchange to Book&Pay, the distribution marketplace Shiji runs on its Horizon platform. The practical effect is that travel buyers on Book&Pay can now reach Hotel Trader's directly connected hotels under one commercial framework, instead of contracting with each supplier separately.

Hotel Trader says more than 20,000 hotels are connected to it directly from their property management or central reservation systems, which is where its rate, availability and inventory data comes from. Book&Pay sits on Shiji Switch and handles that connectivity, plus contracting, transaction management, payments and invoicing in one place. Shiji says it works with more than 91,000 hotels overall.

For a hotel already on the exchange, the gain is reach. More international demand, Asia-Pacific in particular, and the ability to push promotional offers, package rates and corporate negotiated rates through the same connection.

Who said what

Laura Lopez, senior director for strategic accounts at Shiji Horizon Distribution, said adding the exchange to Book&Pay "creates new opportunities for hotels and travel buyers".

Natalie Kimball, vice president of strategic account management for the Americas and EMEA at Shiji, framed it around the paperwork: "With a single agreement, Book&Pay makes it easier for partners to connect with a growing global network."

Nick Beard, senior director of strategic partnerships at Hotel Trader, said the exchange combines "directly contracted hotel inventory with intelligence from billions of data points", which he tied to protecting rate integrity.

The claims to treat carefully

Hotel Trader says a hotel can connect, configure and start selling in under eight minutes. That is a company figure, and it describes configuring a connection rather than getting a channel to produce bookings.

The "billions of data points" line is unquantified. And while the release gives Hotel Trader's 20,000 hotels and Shiji's 91,000, it never says how many travel buyers are actually transacting on Book&Pay. "Hundreds of Travel Buyers worldwide" is the only figure offered on the demand side, and the demand side is what decides whether this is worth anything to a hotel.

What it means for operators

If your PMS or CRS is already connected to Hotel Trader, this is a new demand source you did not have to integrate. Nothing to install. That is the appeal, and also the catch, because inventory you did not plug in yourself can start selling at rates you did not individually negotiate.

So check the rate side. Corporate negotiated and package rates moving through a new marketplace is exactly where parity problems show up, and rate integrity protection is a claim made by the party selling the connection. Pull your rate plan mapping and confirm which plans are exposed to the exchange, and at what level.

Worth noting that Shiji has not posted this to its own press page. The announcement reached the trade press first, which is normal enough for a supply-side partnership, but it means there is no vendor documentation to hand your distribution team yet.