ROCKVILLE, Md.—Choice Hotels International announced that the company will transition to choiceEDGE, the first new global reservation system (GRS) from a hotel company in more than 30 years. The distribution platform supports more than 6,500 Choice Hotels properties globally, accelerating global digital communication and guest experience personalization through data analytics.
The choiceEDGE platform and its cloud-based design is built to effectively handle the current and future volume on digital channels. The platform manages all distribution for Choice Hotels, optimizing rate, inventory, availability, shopping, booking and reservations for its website, mobile apps, and third-party distribution partners.
The transformational project, which began in 2014, is led by the Choice Hotels technology innovation team, based in Phoenix, Arizona, and is a milestone initiative for the company and recently appointed President and CEO Pat Pacious.
“There has been an explosion of growth in shopping requests and digital travel sales worldwide over the last decade. The industry’s old reservation systems are not designed to handle the volume and velocity of transactions we see today in the digital space,” says Pacious. “The choiceEDGE harnesses the power of cloud computing and big data analytics to help deliver value to both guests and franchisees, and leads the industry in capabilities. Through personalization and machine-learning, we are now able to create the intuitive experience guests want and provide data-driven, holistic solutions to boost efficiencies for our franchisees and throughout our value chain.”
As Choice Hotels continues its growth in the upscale and midscale segments, and internationally, the choiceEDGE product will support its expanded system size, as well as multi-channel distribution and mobile strategies. The platform features include: faster-to-market new products, features; and third-party connectivity; cloud-based scalability, stability, and performance delivered through a “reservation-as-a-service” model; preconfigured connectivity with online travel agents, global distribution systems, and property management systems, enabling rapid onboarding of hotels and instant value delivery; and capability to add selling disparate inventory types, including hotel rooms, meeting rooms, vacation rentals, and package offerings.
Choice has already on-boarded multiple distributors onto the platform.
