The Revinate Blog

Revinate and Clarabridge Partner to Bring World-Class Customer Feedback Analysis to Hospitality Industry

Today, Revinate announced a partnership with Clarabridge, Inc, the global leader in text and sentiment analytics driving Customer Experience Management (CEM). Together, Clarabridge and Revinate offer an integrated solution to provide hospitality professionals with customer insight from social media activity, critical to marketing, operations and resource allocation.

Online customer reviews and social media feedback, categorized as unstructured data, traditionally come from disparate sources and are difficult to comprehensively aggregate and analyze. Revinate’s sentiment analysis solution, powered by Clarabridge, arms the hospitality industry with an intuitive, enterprise-grade solution that automatically monitors and analyzes unstructured content. Delivered in real time, critical voice of the customer data bolsters service recovery, training, and operational improvements.

“The growing importance of online reviews in consumer purchase decisions makes it more critical than ever for hotels and restaurants to pay close attention to issues raised by guests,” said Jay Ashton, Co-Founder and CEO of Revinate. “The hospitality industry has always been dedicated to providing a great guest experience; learning from, and acting upon, guest feedback is crucial to boosting sales and loyalty. With Clarabridge, Revinate can easily sift through the social media chatter and transform sentiment into actionable strategies.  This partnership strengthens Revinate’s ability to help hospitality companies to monitor, manage and improve their businesses through intelligent analysis of customer data.”

While Clarabridge has been working with many of the world’s largest hospitality brands for years, the partnership with Revinate means that even more regional, property and brand-level teams will have access to Clarabridge’s powerful sentiment technology. David C. Kloeppel, President and Chief Operating Officer at Gaylord Entertainment, says, “It’s exciting to see the partnership between Clarabridge and Revinate. As a long-standing customer of both companies, we recognize the power that the combined solution will give our STAR employees and we believe that loyalty will increase as we better understand our guests’ needs and provide a more tailored experience.”

“Revinate has proven itself to be the leader in hospitality reputation management, through listening and proactively engaging the Voice of Customer (VoC) as a critical initiative,” said Sid Banerjee, CEO of Clarabridge. “Members working on the front lines have exclusive access to customers on a daily basis and prove an invaluable resource to improve operations. We look forward to the synergies this partnership will provide for our hospitality customers and all organizations seeking to improve their reputational and operational posture.”

About Revinate

With user generated content and reviews increasing in both number and importance, hotel and restaurant owners and operators have a simple choice: either ignore the cacophony of social media and hope for the best or proactively track and manage what is being said online in a way that deepens customer relationships, strengthens brands and boosts revenue. If you opt for the latter, then Revinate’s user-friendly software platform, custom-designed for the unique needs of the hospitality industry, is an irreplaceable tool. Revinate’s powerful technology monitors all of the important social media venues – including Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor – and provides instant alerts whenever your property or brand is mentioned. With information comes power: in this case, the power to please a disgruntled customer, monitor the competition and set yourself apart when it comes to guest satisfaction and loyalty. Based in San Francisco, Revinate counts the world’s leading hospitality brands as clients. To learn more, please visit www.revinate.com

About Clarabridge

Clarabridge is the leading provider of sentiment and text analytics software for customer experience management. Clarabridge enables Global 1000 enterprises to achieve a universal understanding of their customers by automatically collecting, classifying, scoring sentiment and analyzing qualitative data found in voice of the customer feedback channels. Insights extracted result in improved marketing, product/service offerings, operations and customer service across an organization. Clarabridge customers include AOL, B/E Aerospace, Betfair, Charming Shoppes, Inc., Choice Hotels, Dell, E.ON, Expedia, Fidelity Gaylord Hotels, Intuit, J.D. Power, L’Oréal, Marriott International, Nissan, PetSmart, QVC, Inc., Sage North America, Santander, United Airlines, Unilever, Walmart, Walgreens and Wendy’s International. Clarabridge is privately held with offices in Reston, Va. and London, U.K. For more information, visit www.clarabridge.com or on Twitter: @clarabridge.

 

Ouch. A Bad Review Stings.

This Valentine's Day morning I woke up bright and early and was looking forward to an exercise class before I started work. I had a press release queued up for 3am so I quickly scanned my email to ensure that it went out and was being picked up by the media. And that's when I  noticed an email from a work friend, alerting me to a blog post. "Brace yourself," it said, alongside a link. Never thinking that the article was going to be about me or my work, I clicked the link and started scanning the post. It took me a minute to understand what I was reading because, let's face it, it's not every day that someone criticizes your work. Among other things, the post criticized the language in the press release and other marketing copy that I use to promote our product. The author also took a jab at our Twitter and Facebook presence, claiming that we don't practice what we preach and questioned the vailidity of online reviews. Ouch, ouch, ouch and OUCH.

So what did I do? Of course the first thing I did was scream a couple of explatives. Then I sent the link to my team so they knew I was on top of it. And then I calmed down and reread the article. As I read I tried to classify the author's arguments as true, fair or baseless. There were a few of each.

I then penned a response. My goal was to be honest, human and not defensive. I didn't need to address every point but I also didn't want to roll over on the big issues since I very much believe in what we do at Revinate. Before I posted my comment, I sent it to my boss for review. He caught a typo but otherwise thought the response was spot-on. Here is what I said,

Hi Phil,

Creating the best product for the industry and being responsive to customer needs comes before any of our outbound marketing efforts. As any of our customers will attest, we are incredibly responsive and eager to help with free training and support, at any time. I urge you to look at our blog, press and our best practices documents where we focus a great deal of our marketing time and efforts helping the industry understand the digital landscape. While I wouldn’t say the cobbler’s child has no shoes, your point is well made and a visit to your Facebook Page made me chuckle. Thanks for the food for thought.

However, I have to disagree with you about our technology not mattering in months. Are reviews going away? Are hoteliers going to stop caring what guests think about their experiences? Will consumers stop sharing their recommendations and tips on social networks? I don’t think so. We collect reviews from ‘verified review sources’ as well as ‘unverified review sources’ but regardless of the source, the data is public and highly read so hoteliers need to care. And yes, they are monitoring in real time and responding as issues arise. That’s what hospitality is all about.

Thank you.
Michelle

At the same time that I posted the comment, I also reached out to the author via email. I said:

 Good morning. I hope you're doing well. I just commented on your article but wanted to reach out personally in case you want to chat or get any more information. While your article provided a rough start to my morning (and on Valentine's Day, no less ;) I appreciate the sentiment and the work you do to help marketing/pr folks and hope we have the opportunity to meet/speak soon. Thank you!

The author responded quickly to both my comment and to my email. In his email response he thanked me for reaching out and said that he would very much like to test Revinate for a future review and was interested in following Revinate news. He also made sure that I knew his intention wasn't to cause pain, which of course, I knew.

And that's all I could've hoped for. From a bad review I was able to show him that I care about my work and that I'm passionate about what we do at Revinate. I'm looking forward to walking him through a demo and getting his feedback on the product. Everyone has something to learn from criticism and these days a bad review can come when you least expect it - - even on Valentine's Day.

Of course,  what's funny about this situation is that Revinate helps clients deal with their online reputation by monitoring and analyzing online reviews and social media mentions. I now know exactly what it feels like to get a bad review. But I have also proven that it's possible to turn a tough situation into an opportunity, through thoughtful engagement and an ability to see your short comings. Rather than becoming defensive, it's always a better idea to look at issues with a desire for constant improvement and the openness to change your ways.

Kempinski Hotels Selects Revinate as Social Media Solution

San Francisco, CA – February 14, 2012—Revinate, the new standard for guest satisfaction for the hospitality industry, today announced that Kempinski Hotels S.A. has partnered with Revinate across its portfolio of 71 luxury hotels in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.  The global rollout of Revinate is happening in-line with Kempinski’s new social media strategy to ensure that success can be tracked and measured.

Kempinski property and corporate staff will be using the software platform to both manage the properties’ online reviews and drive new business and loyalty with Revinate’s social media solution. In addition, General Managers and the Corporate Operations Department will be using Revinate’ GS2 Reports as part of their management reporting, ensuring that social media and online reviews will become operationalized, much like traditional guest satisfaction.

Kempinski selected Revinate after an in-depth, multi-vendor evaluation process. Revinate won the business based on its comprehensive, multi-language review coverage and its rich feature set. Alexander Noak, Corporate Manager Digital Strategy at Kempinksi Hotels S.A. explains, “I was looking for a way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and we can do that through our reviews. Of all the tools we looked at, only Revinate provides a solution that allows us to use our online reviews to influence conversion. Revinate’s Social Buzz makes it quick and easy to select and post quotes from reviews on our own sites to ensure that our shoppers have trusted guest feedback to give them confidence in their booking decisions with us.”

Kempinski Hotels S.A. is an exciting new partnership for Revinate, who is already viewed as the gold standard in online reputation management for hospitality in North America. Marc Heyneker, Co-Founder and VP of Sales says, “With our recent addition of comprehensive global review coverage in all languages, Revinate is now actively expanding its services to address the needs of international customers. Having a large, well-established luxury brand like Kempinski select Revinate is a great testament to our solution’s strength and value overseas, and helps pave the way for our future growth across global markets.”

About Revinate:

With online guest-generated travel reviews increasing in both number and importance, hotel owners and operators have a simple choice: either ignore the explosion of social media and hope for the best or proactively track and manage what is being said online in a way that deepens customer relationships, strengthens brands and boosts revenue. If you opt for the latter, then Revinate’s user-friendly software platform, custom-designed for the unique needs of the hospitality industry, is an irreplaceable tool. Revinate’s powerful technology monitors all of the important social media venues – including Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor – and provides instant alerts whenever your property or brand is mentioned. With information comes power: in this case, the power to please a disgruntled customer, monitor the competition and set yourself apart when it comes to guest satisfaction and loyalty. Based in San Francisco, Revinate counts the world’s leading hospitality brands as clients. To learn more, please visit www.revinate.com.

Revinate Selected by AlwaysOn as an OnMedia Top 100 Winner

Revinate, the leading provider of social media and online reputation management solutions for the hospitality industry, today announced that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnMedia Top 100 winners.  Inclusion in the OnMedia 100 signifies leadership amongst its peers and game-changing approaches and technologies that are likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. Revinate was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts spanning the globe based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.

Revinate and the OnMedia Top 100 Companies will be honored at AlwaysOn’s OnMedia NYC event on February 22^st, 2012, at the Time Warner Center.

This two-day executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on which forces are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries.

 “The make-up of OnMedia 100 represents forward-thinking media companies in a year charged with disruptive change.  The emergence of Web-fueled TV and the explosive growth of smartphones and tablets are challenging the media world to transform itself into a global, consumer-focused industry. Coupled with the socialization of everything, this year’s digital media and entertainment startups are boldly charging into future, ready to reinvent the establishment with new, invigoration products and services,” says Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “Web analytics are now embracing a social world, providing marketing and advertising companies with the targeted data that delivers on the promise of reaching consumers with meaningful, actionable messages.”

The OnMedia 100 winners were selected from among hundreds of other technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists, and industry insiders.  The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2012 list.

Designed to meet the unique needs of the hospitality industry, Revinate is a software platform that tames and demystifies the all-important realm of social media by monitoring all online reviews and mentions of an individual property, restaurant or brand. Revinate gives owners and employees the chance to turn user-generated feedback into opportunities to delight guests, as well as the data they need to implement operational improvements. Unlike basic monitoring tools, which focus only on the individual-property level, Revinate provides the business intelligence and solutions that can be used by management companies and entire brands to drive measurable results.

A full list of all the OnMedia Top 100 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website.

“I am incredibly proud that AlwaysOn has selected Revinate as an OnMedia Top 100 Winner,” says Jay Ashton, Co-Founder and CEO of Revinate.  “In the two years that we have been selling our software service into the hospitality vertical, we have seen incredible progress in the way that hotels and restaurants are adapting to social media and innovative new technology. As a result, they are able to reach customers and provide better service than was ever possible before. We look forward to helping our customers continue to drive sales and raise the bar when it comes to service and loyalty,” Ashton added.

About Revinate

With user generated content and reviews increasing in both number and importance, hotel and restaurant owners and operators have a simple choice: either ignore the cacophony of social media and hope for the best or proactively track and manage what is being said online in a way that deepens customer relationships, strengthens brands and boosts revenue. If you opt for the latter, then Revinate’s user-friendly software platform, custom-designed for the unique needs of the hospitality industry, is an irreplaceable tool. Revinate’s powerful technology monitors all of the important social media venues – including Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor – and provides instant alerts whenever your property or brand is mentioned. With information comes power: in this case, the power to please a disgruntled customer, monitor the competition and set yourself apart when it comes to guest satisfaction and loyalty. Based in San Francisco, Revinate counts the world’s leading hospitality brands as clients. To learn more, please visit www.revinate.com

About AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn is the leading business media brand networking the Global Silicon Valley. AlwaysOn helped ignite the social media revolution in early 2003 when it launched the AlwaysOn network. In 2004, it became the first media brand to socially network its online readers and event attendees. AlwaysOn’s preeminent executive event series includes the Silicon Valley Innovation Summit, OnMedia, OnHollywood, IMPACT Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic, Venture Summit East, OnDemand, Venture Summit Silicon Valley, OnMobile, and GoingGreen Silicon Valley. The AlwaysOn network and live event series continue to lead the industry by empowering its readers, event participants, sponsors, and advertisers like no other media brand.

2011 - How Did We Do?

As we come to the end of 2011, I wanted to share some stats related to our clients' performance. The Revinate database contains paying customers as well as their comp set hotels so we can easily track the performance of both customers and non-customers. Across every metric we examined, our customers are out-performing non-customers. See what happens when you take the time to manage your online reputation? Here are some reasons to be proud to call yourself a Revinator:

* Revinate customers are far more likely to publicly respond to a TripAdvisor review than non-customers. Close to 73% of Revinate customers responded to a review in the second half of 2011. Only 44% of non-customers publicly responded to a review in the same time period.

* The average TripAdvisor rating of a Revinate customer for the second half of the year was 4.16 (out of 5). The average rating of non-customers was 4.018. A narrow victory!

* Revinate clients are quicker to respond to reviews than non-clients, shaving more than day off the average response time.

Want something to aspire to? Holiday Inn St Louis Forrest Hill responded to 100% of their reviews. And their response was published 2.938 days after the initial review was posted. With time for TripAdvisor to moderate, that's speedy! Oh, and their average rating happens to be 4.562!

And finally, since our clients often ask whether they should be responding to positive reviews as well as negative ones, I wanted to share what your colleagues do. Your colleagues responded to 28% of 4 and 5 star reviews. 32% of 3 star reviews and 46.52% of 1 and 2 star reviews.

 

 

 

Revinate Launches Comprehensive Social Media Solution for Restaurants

San Francisco, CA – December 12, 2011—Revinate, the next generation of guest satisfaction, today announced the immediate availability of its much anticipated restaurant solution. This innovative new solution for restaurants leverages Revinate’s experience as the leading social media solution for thousands of hotels worldwide.  Now, restaurant brands, management companies, owners and operators can benefit from the powerful online reputation platform that global hotel companies such as Hyatt Hotels, Sofitel and Kempinski rely on daily to engage guests and manage guest satisfaction.

Revinate’s restaurant solution provides a single dashboard to manage all online reviews, mobile check-ins and social media mentions, and includes sophisticated trending and sentiment analysis. With Revinate, restaurateurs can now monitor feedback for their restaurants across millions of sites in real time, and then easily engage with customers on top review sites and social networks – the locations where most diners now select restaurants and make reservations. This new service, available for an affordable monthly fee, is designed to be easy enough for any employee to use, regardless of technical ability.

“I can’t think of any software service that is more valuable for an individual restaurant or chain today. I spent 20+ plus years in the restaurant industry in operational roles and I only wish this software was available for me when I was struggling to figure out where our restaurants were strong and where we needed to invest resources. With Revinate, you can easily pinpoint operational problems and fix them before they become serious and costly issues,” says Clark S. Kincaid, Ph.D, Associate Professor at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

Orient-Express’s Jeff Webster, Public Relations and Digital Media Manager, North America, says, “Online review sites and social media are critically important to our business, which makes sense given the passion people have towards food and the research consumers do to discover new restaurants. Revinate saves us an incredible amount of time, aggregating all reviews and review scores into a single location so we can quickly assess guest satisfaction and understand how we're measuring up against our competitors. We can then focus more energy on building brand visibility, engaging with customers and driving new business."

A long-time hotel client, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants has also been using Revinate’s restaurant solution to manage their restaurants’ online reputation. Jeff Brown, Area Director of Restaurant Operations, says, “Revinate has become a critical tool for us to monitor and track our online reviews. Restaurants are incredibly susceptible to a loss in revenue as a result of bad online reviews so it’s incredibly important to know what people are saying in real time. Revinate allows us to stay in-tune to what people are saying, and allows us to easily act, for example, by publicly responding to reviews or opening tickets to assign responsibility should issues arise that can be remedied.”

“Our restaurant solution was designed in close collaboration with restaurant managers from hospitality companies who have long trusted Revinate,” says Jay Ashton, co-founder and CEO of Revinate. “With thousands of hotels relying on Revinate every day, it’s a natural progression for us to also help restaurants use public reviews and social media to grow their businesses, and we’re thrilled to be launching our innovative restaurant solution today.”

Restaurants interested in learning more can visit http://www.revinate.com/for-restaurants or email info@revinate.com.

About Revinate:

With online guest-generated travel reviews increasing in both number and importance, hotel and restaurant owners and operators have a simple choice: either ignore the cacophony of social media and hope for the best or proactively track and manage what is being said online in a way that deepens customer relationships, strengthens brands and boosts revenue. Revinate’s powerful technology monitors all of the important social media venues – including Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor – and provides instant alerts whenever your property or brand is mentioned. Based in San Francisco, Revinate counts the world’s leading hospitality brands as clients. To learn more, please visit www.revinate.com.

Revinate and HeBS Digital Announce Strategic Partnership

New York, NY (December 8, 2011) – HeBS Digital, the leading hotel digital marketing and direct online strategy firm for the hospitality industry, today announces its strategic partnership with Revinate, the leading social media and reputation management solution for the hospitality industry.  The insight and robust tools that Revinate provides, combined with HeBS Digital packages designed to complement Revinate’s offerings, put the power of a strong customer review monitoring strategy at the hotelier’s fingertips.

“At HeBS Digital we know the crucial role that customer reviews play in driving website traffic and bookings,” said Max Starkov, President & CEO of HeBS Digital. “Hoteliers must also align the hotel’s ‘official’ content on their website with the ‘unofficial’ customer-generated content – otherwise there will be a gap in credibility. Revinate’s platform, coupled with HeBS Digital services, will allow hoteliers to take control of their reputation online, compare their performance against the competition, make operational improvements, increase loyalty, and drive sales.”

Revinate aggregates online reviews from sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Hotels.com and Priceline into one intuitive dashboard.  In addition, Revinate allows hoteliers to create custom searches to collect every mention of the hotel, its restaurant, competition,  or more across news sites, blogs, photo or video sites and social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and foursquare. But more than a listening platform, Revinate allows hoteliers to take action by responding to reviews, opening tickets, or updating social media accounts in real time, directly from the Revinate dashboard.

“Revinate’s intuitive platform helps us manage our customer reviews and social media strategy with better insight,” said Chad Hallert, Director of eCommerce/Internet Marketing at Eldorado Resorts, LLC. HeBS Digital takes this insight and provides recommendations based on how we’re doing against the comp set and against our goals.  The Revinate platform, combined with HeBS Digital’s customer review action plans is the key to our online reputation success. ”

“We are pleased to be working with HeBS Digital to provide our customers with the thought leadership and strategy that is often necessary to ensure that the deep intelligence we provide is being used to its greatest potential,” said Marc Heyneker, Co-Founder and VP of Sales and Business Development.  We look forward to seeing our customers thrive with their services.

Hotel-controlled content on review sites and social media channels have a considerable impact on visitor traffic and conversions, and HeBS Digital is a pioneer in driving customer review strategies for its clients. The HeBS Digital offering includes the Revinate platform plus HeBS Digital’s Customer Review Services, designed to help hoteliers make the most out of Revinate data, reviews, trends, and comp set statistics. HeBS Digital offers both a quarterly package and services a la carte. Click here to learn more about HeBS Digital Revinate Packages and Revinate services.

About HeBS Digital:

Founded in 2001, HeBS Digital is the industry’s leading full-service hotel digital marketing, website design and direct online channel strategy firm based in New York City (www.HeBSDigital.com).

HeBS Digital has pioneered many of the “best practices” in hotel Internet marketing, social and mobile marketing, and direct online channel distribution. The firm has won over 130 prestigious industry awards for its digital marketing and website design services, including numerous Adrian Awards, Davey Awards, W3 Awards, WebAwards, Magellan Awards, Summit International Awards, Interactive Media Awards, and IAC Awards.

A diverse client portfolio of over 500 top tier major hotel brands, luxury and boutique hotel brands, resorts and casinos, hotel management companies, franchisees and independents, and CVBs has sought and successfully taken advantage of the hospitality Internet marketing expertise offered at HeBS Digital. Contact HeBS’ consultants at (212) 752-8186 or success@hebsdigital.com.

Why User Generated Content is the Great Equalizer in Hotel Marketing

Subscribers to Hotel BusinessReview/HotelExecutive.com can read  Michelle Wohl's article about how small and independent properties can now compete with large brands online thanks to user-generated content. Read the article here.

Revinate and MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global Announce Strategic Partnership

San Francisco, CA – September 14, 2011—Revinate, the hospitality industry’s leading software platform for online reputation management, is pleased to announce its strategic partnership with MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global, a subsidiary of MICROS Systems, Inc. and one of the leading interactive marketing companies for hospitality and travel. This strategic partnership provides MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global customers with the ultimate hospitality reputation management solution.

 “As travelers increasingly turn to social media for unbiased reviews of hotels, it is more crucial than ever for hoteliers to utilize an automated solution that turns unstructured, online feedback into critical business intelligence, says Jos Schaap, President, MICROS ecommerce Services|TIG Global. “This unique partnership will enable our agency to supply the most powerful combined solution set available in the industry, saving our clients time and money, while providing an elegant and intuitive reputation management tool to maximize operations, drive sales and boost loyalty to a new level.”

“We are excited to partner with MICROS ecommerce Services|TIG Global, proven innovators in the hospitality technology and online marketing space,” says Marc Heyneker, Co-Founder and VP of Sales & Business Development at Revinate. “We are certain that this partnership will provide MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global clients with unmatched online reputation technology. In addition to the agency’s full suite of interactive solutions, clients will now benefit from access to Revinate’s software service, which drives guest engagement across all social and review channels for improving sales, marketing, operations loyalty, and ultimately guest satisfaction.”

Pan Pacific Hotels Group is the first MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global customer to adopt this best-in-class solution for its portfolio. With this, hotels under its Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts and PARKROYAL Hotels & Resorts brands can now tune in to what guests and customers are saying in the online space.  “Even more importantly, having the guest’s voice in one, neatly organized space allows us to engage and react quickly to our clientele and continue to provide the exceptional service that is in keeping with our brand standards,”said Angie Ho, Vice President of Online Marketing , Pan Pacific Hotels Group. “With the combined solution of Revinate’s platform - focused on action and transparency -  and MICROS eCommerce Services|TIG Global’s online marketing expertise, we look forward to learning even more about our customers’ needs and preferences, and creating proactive loyalty campaigns based on tangible data.”

 

Revinate Integrates With foursquare

Revinate, the new standard for guest satisfaction, today announced the launch of its strategic integration with foursquare, a location-based mobile platform with more than ten million users. Integration with foursquare makes it easy for Revinate customers to monitor and reward social activity on their premises in real-time. With this update, Revinate enhances its position as the market leader and offers the most comprehensive set of reputation management functionality designed exclusively for hoteliers.

One of the first companies to integrate with foursquare’s new Merchant API, Revinate is allowing its thousands of hotel customers to create and launch foursquare specials directly from their Revinate dashboard. Customers can select from many options to create the best special for their business objectives, including a mayor special, a check-in special, a loyalty special, and many more. In addition to surprising and delighting guests by connecting with them in real-time on their preferred social networks, hoteliers can now easily identify and reward loyal visitors and even increase ancillary revenue. For example, hoteliers can offer a foursquare special at their bar, restaurant or even spa in order to entice guests who would otherwise check-out without having experienced the additional services.

Hoteliers are just beginning to explore the sales and loyalty opportunities created by Foursquare.  According to Jay Ashton, CEO and co-founder of Revinate, “Hotels are always looking for new ways to differentiate on service. By providing our customers with an intuitive on-ramp to an innovative, fast-growing location-based service, we’re opening the door for exciting opportunities for our customers to stand-out from the crowd and drive incremental revenue.”

Akshay Patil, Platform Evangelist at Foursquare says, “We built the Merchant API to allow third parties to build super useful tools to reach foursquare’s fast-growing community. With this new integration, Revinate has created a great tool for the hospitality industry.”

While foursquare is the first location-based service that Revinate has integrated into its platform, customers can expect additional services to be integrated in the near future.