Wix relaunches hotels solution

Wix, the website design, creation and management platform, has announced the relaunch of its solution for the hotel sector, Wix Hotels. For this new iteration, it has partnered with HotelRunner, an online sales and management platform for hotels. Wix Hotels by HotelRunner will launch first in English and then in other languages.

What it does. Combining the Wix platform with HotelRunner’s technology will enable hotels to design and manage websites, as well as their properties, guests, bookings, and sales channels, all from one platform.

Among specific capabilities, users will be able to:

• Connect to online sales channels and travel agents such as Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb. 
• Receive reservations and payments from their web properties. 
• Manage rates and availability.
• Manage front desk operations including check-in.
• Offer extras, promotions, deals, and coupons to guests.

Why we care. Sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back, especially after the airline cancelation debacle of Memorial Day weekend, but travel is surely returning. Indeed, some predict it will “go big” in 2022.

Consumers, of course, have grown accustomed to frictionless digital experiences over the last two or three years — and have a decreased tolerance for the opposite — so a reviving hotel industry will be looking for workable, cost-effective marketing and sales solutions. “As travel has begun to increase in the post-pandemic era, we’re seeing a rise in the demand for digitalization in the hotel and hospitality industry and we’re proud that we have developed a strong solution for these businesses,” said Ronny Elkayam, SVP Mobile, App Market and Strategic Products at Wix, in a release.

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space.

He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020.

Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.