Ravi Chandran
RedDoorz, Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest-growing hotel management and booking platform, is now the leading hotel chain in the country with the most number of hotel properties across the country.
The industry’s leading affordable hotel chain credits its award winning technology that provides business solutions to generate more partner hotels that are strategically located in major central business districts and key cities all over the country. RedDoorz has also produced both loyal and new customers who are on the lookout for deals and cost efficient arrangements, solutions to the traffic situation and opportunities to travel and enjoy new experiences.
RedDoorz, now has more than 200 hotels in more than 20 different cities nationwide, providing standardized hotel experience for domestic and international travelers. When it started Philippine operations in October 2018, the hotel chain was operating with less than a hundred properties. A year later it has experienced 300% growth, with total number of employees increasing from just around 50 employees in 2018 to 200 at present. It is targeting 300-plus properties, 30 plus cities, 300 direct employees and 3,000 indirect hotel staff by the end of 2019.
RedDoorz has been disrupting the hotel and hospitality sector in Southeast Asia since the company was formed in 2015.
With RedDoorz’s presence in major cities in the country including Manila, Cebu, Davao, and Tagaytay, the company focuses on opening new properties in tourist-heavy destinations especially for the upcoming holidays in areas like Boracay, Bohol, Antique, Capiz, Dumaguete, Palawan, Tacloban, and other key cities in Visayas and Mindanao before the year ends – whereas RedDoorz Philippines also plays to be the leading local tourism driver as they cater to both domestic and international travelers from across different strata and for various reasons.
“We can say that about 90% of RedDoorz customers are domestic travelers. Most of them travel to and from Manila or Davao or any other cities in the Philippines for business as well as travelers who wants access to nearby tourist areas. We also observed that our customers who are usually booking rooms in the city wants to lessen stress especially because of traffic… or even booking our hotels to be able to do more lifestyle activities and spend more time for important moments with family and friends. We want to be in every relevant street corner in the Philippines,” RedDoorz Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications Liviu Nedef bared in an intimate media engagement in Makati last Thursday.
Nedef noted that more and more commuters and city workers are booking rooms in conveniently located, affordable hotels because of the traffic. “As travel time gets longer and traffic situations looks more unpredictable, we are observing that the majority of our consumers try to save time and money by just booking accommodations in the city. Instead of going through a 3-hour per way commute time, booking a hotel can be more practical especially if they have our app which definitely offers more affordable rates..” said Nedef. “And interestingly, that has led to greater demand for our hotel accommodations.”
Nedef explained that RedDoorz does not own the hotel properties but partners with existing hospitality institutions to provide them with technology and marketing strategies to ensure that all RedDoorz partner properties provide standardized services and amenities at affordable costs. Travelers can choose from three different hotel categories ranging from RedDoorz Standard to RedDoorz Plus and RedDoorz Premium, with each category offering a varying degree of value services for all guests.
All RedDoorz partner hotels guarantee simple but essential traveler needs – from clean rooms, clean bed sheets, free Wi-Fi connectivity, to toiletries and bottled water – perks not usually associated with affordable hotels. RedDoorz not only makes it cost effective but ensures standardized and convenient app usage for consumers – being RedDoorz as the brand of choice of traveling Filipinos.
Nedef said RedDoorz’s popularity highly stems from its award-winning technology that is continuously being upgraded to understand demands, pricing algorithms, make hotel management easier for partners, and bookings efficient for different consumer journeys. Recently recognized as the top travel app, the RedDoorz app has made a massive impact in the travel and hospitality industry. “We are continually thinking of ways to make the travel experience easier and accessible to more and more people from different walks of life. We want to heavily contribute on changing and uplifting lifestyles whether it may be for business or leisure travels.” said Liviu.
RedDoorz’s presence in many cities and towns for sure has helped spike local tourism and has benefited local government revenues as RedDoorz supports and acts upon the growing unique rates of domestic and inbound tourism.
Mr Paul Ho, chief mortgage officer at iCompareLoan, said, “the hospitality sector, just like the rest of real estate market, is being disrupted by technology. This is because customers expect better experiences and turn-around-time in their interactions with real estate service providers.”
In keeping up with proptech revolution that is exploding everywhere, property agents “must upgrade or die”, said Mr Ho. He noted that many property agencies struggle to keep up with all the regulatory changes in the industry, as well as the changing financial calculations for acquiring a property. He urged property agents to master the basics in property financing, refinancing, taxation and CPF.
Mr Ho said that iCompareLoan.com runs a full 2 – 3 days course on how property agents can produce such reports for their customers. He added that the trademarked course teaches Property Agents how to generate complicated Financial calculations using – Home Loan Report (TM) – in 3 mins flat. This helps Property agents to close deals faster and serve customers more professionally.
