AUSTRALIAN HOTEL FILLS SPARE ROOMS WITH ONLINE AUCTIONS

Source: Rydges Hotel

July 7, 1999
The Rydges Hotel chain will auction rooms in its Australia and New Zealand hotels and resorts over the Internet through Yahoo! Australia & NZ Auctions.

In a separate announcement Australian Internet travel company Travel.com.au said it would offer online auctions of two holidays each week through its Website.

The Rydges chain will make accommodation in its 30 plus hotels available to Internet users, particularly targeting opportunistic customers who may not have planned to book through a travel agent or look for a Rydges hotel specifically.

"We were looking for an innovative way to promote our brand, properties and new Website," said David Seargeant, managing director of Rydges Hotels. "By using the online auction platform set up Yahoo! Australia & NZ, we think we've taken a big step toward doing this. It's a flexible and scalable strategy that will allow us to attract and win over new guests. "

Rydges will be able to look at their unsold room levels and put a number of them up for auction to opportunistic bookers, beginning with weekend nights in their city properties, and weekday packages in their resort properties.

"This is the first time we have had the opportunity to sell excess inventory with such short lead time so we will be closely monitoring the response to ascertain the longevity of the promotion," Robin Harrigan, Rydges' marketing manager for e-business, told Newsbytes.

For Rydges, the Internet and e-commerce solutions like online auctions are a way out of a web of contractual obligations with major corporates, travel agents and airlines and limited marketing opportunities for spare rooms.

"We believe that e-commerce will change this and we are excited about the possibilities that are becoming available," said Harrigan. "Our aim is to ensure that our Internet site becomes one of the key communication interfaces with our customers."

Meanwhile, Yahoo! Australia & NZ is keen to promote its auction services to companies as the sector bustles locally. The major media groups in Australia all now operate online auction ventures or are planning to, in addition to independent operations.

"Companies can set up shop in Yahoo! Auctions for no cost at all, meaning they can trial auctions with us and not need to worry about the infrastructure needed to run them," said Anna Featherstone, PR manager at Yahoo! Australia & NZ, speaking with Newsbytes. "We expect a number of companies in a variety of industries to start taking advantage of these benefits."