Roomer is a travel marketplace company headquartered in New York. It develops, markets and operates the Roomer website and apps in which users can list their non-refundable hotel reservations for sale and offer them to buyers at a discounted price. Roomer was founded in Tel Aviv by Ben Froumine, Gon Ben David and Adi Zellner in September 2011.
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History
The Roomer idea came from one of the co-founders, Gon, who had to cancel his visit to New York and was obligated to pay a significant cancellation fee for a hotel room that he did not use. As a consequence, there was a pricey hotel reservation that could not be made and cancelled without significant fees.
Roomer raised $2 million from the BRM Group, and the Waze co-founder, Uri Levine whose co-founded company acquired by Google for $1 billion, sits on the board of Roomer. Since its startup in January 2013, in less than a year, Roomer has expanded its business to operate worldwide.
The second round of funding was raised $5 million from Series A by Disruptive in November 25, 2014 as reported by Fox Business. Its rapid expansion is partially the results of the enthusiasm from its customers, since more than 75% of sellers are sharing their stories and experiences on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. One of the important services of Roomer is its discounted reservation offer. After its startup for about one year, the average discount rate of unused hotel reservations from Roomer was 37%.
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Post-launch media reviews
Forbes shows that, in the U. S. alone, more than 221,000 unused hotel rooms are cancelled and paid for each day indicating that $8.6 billion is wasted annually due to non-refundable hotel room cancellations Trocotel. It is the concept that makes Roomer unique, and its automatic validation system makes the deal possible in every single reservation to benefit both sellers and buyers. The features of Roomer business include that people can sell their reservations with a small loss, buyers can buy a reservation with a discount, and thus it belongs to a service of outsourcing on inventory.
New York Times describes Roomer as some help on the nonrefundable front because hotel rates are often the downfall of travelers in circumstances beyond control. "It is doing its best to combat cancellation fees and nontransferable dates".
Fox Business announces Roomer as a startup that allows travelers to sell last-minute hotel cancellations, and it is the first ever company that provides a solution for non-refundable hotel room cancellations. Roomer is partnered with more than 2,000 boutique and larger hotel chains including Belvedere New York and InnSuites Hospitality.
Mashable claims Roomer as one of the ten startups making travel more affordable as "last minute deals on cancellation, and encouraging consumers to "say goodbye to pesky cancellation fees and sunk costs" since Roomer allows sellers to post their rooms and verifies the posts, and then allows buyers to browse and purchase the reservations.
Huffington Post lists Roomer as one of the ten impressive Tel Aviv Tech Startups, and mentions that Roomer is "set to dramatically impact the hotel industry" because it "uses an automated validation system to authenticate reservations ensuring that buyers are never misled or disappointed".
In the processes, as mentioned by Business Travel News, services are free for buyers and hotels, but sellers need to pay 15% of sale price to compensate the service fee. In this case, sellers reduce their loss, buyers get discounted rates, and hotels get practical customers to live in to have the opportunities to offer additional services, like room services, restaurants, spas and Wi-Fi. Since Roomer has partnership with numerous hotels and travel agencies throughout the world, when users want to cancel a hotel room, they will be sent directly to a related Roomer website to list the unused room for sale with a discount rate.
Technologies
Roomer's unique technology allows users to post room into the system and automatically validate the hotel reservation so the inventory on the site is safe and reliable. The system allows users to post rooms with minimum efforts since it automatically finds information on the hotel like images, description, reviews and more. It launched its first mobile apps for iOS and Android in 2014.
Market Responses
Senior tech analyst from PhoCus Wright, Bob Offut, mentioned that Roomer represents "unique product offer and concept" to show "innovation in both business and technology". Pamela Barnhill, as a president of InnSuites Hotels and Suites, said that "It's a fantastic service that's been needed for a long time", "and a good alternative to the struggle between hotels and customers".
References
External links
- Official website
- Twitter-Roomer
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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