Net Affinity – Tech Partner that helps Hotels Grow and Thrive

Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
Personalised, Powerful, Precise - THE TECH PARTNER THAT HELPS HOTELS GROW AND THRIVE

Personalised, Powerful, Precise – THE TECH PARTNER THAT HELPS HOTELS GROW AND THRIVE

Net Affinity offers hotels a one-stop-shop to convert direct online bookings. We meet with Net Affinity Founder & CEO William Cotter to learn more about the company’s award-winning products and services – and most importantly, their brand new feature-rich, lightning-fast booking engine, made for mobile.

To survive and thrive, the hospitality industry must meet the demands of an ever-changing world. Technology is also ever-changing, and hospitality has the challenge to both adapt with it and harness it for the good of the industry. Award-winning booking engine technology company Net Affinity, who have just launched their brand new booking engine, help hotels to do just that. Hotel & Restaurant Times met with Founder & CEO William Cotter to get under the hood of Net Affinity and learn about what the company can offer hotels.

The company was first established in 2000. Hotels were one of the first industries to move their business online, and William tells us it quickly became clear hospitality would be a large part of Net Affinity’s business. “It was a natural fit to facilitate the booking of hotels,” says William. “I thought if we really want to do well in this business, we need to hire experienced people from the hospitality industry, which we did. They had hotel experience, contacts and knowledge of the industry. The key to the business is knowing how a hotelier thinks, understanding their drivers, pain points and pressures, and how their business works.”

So, what exactly does Net Affinity offer clients? Put simply, the company provides hotels with a booking engine platform using the most up to date, cutting-edge booking technology on the market. “Given we are constantly updating our technology to keep up with an ever-changing world, we have just released our new booking engine which is feature-rich, lightning fast and made for mobile,” says William. “Business intelligence underpins the whole system, which has proven to be insightful for clients. From a guest perspective it’s everything they would want in terms of their booking experience – it’s personalised, powerful and precise.”

Net Affinity also provide tie-in services, which help to increase website visibility, visits and conversions. “We provide marketing, site design, and the management of the business with the client,” William says. “We really get in and learn deeply about the business and how to best get their website to perform, positioning them strongly and making sure they get their share of voice online with search and social platforms. In practical terms, hoteliers provide a spend per month, and expect a return on that investment. Our job is to ensure that return meets their expectations.”

Mirroring the changes in hospitality industry and indeed the world, Net Affinity has also had to evolve, with the pandemic being a huge driver of change. “We were pushed to learn ways to make the business more efficient,” says William. “We adjusted by bringing in tech as much as we could into our business to eliminate a lot of manual processes. We moved everything to the cloud and started a remote first working environment. From a product point of view, we had an opportunity to look at our platforms. We asked the questions, what will the world be like after COVID? Where is the industry going? Where will the demands of our customer be and the demands of the guests? Using those questions as a guide we decided to do a completely rebuild of the product from the ground up.”

During the pandemic, the company were certified a Great Place To Work, and have continued on this journey ever since. Just last month, they were named in the top 20 of small Irish workplaces by Great Places To Work. With 66 per cent of their workforce female and over 15 nationalities, it is incredibly important to them that their diverse range of staff are happy and healthy, with great importance placed on their wellbeing.

Personalised, Powerful, Precise - THE TECH PARTNER THAT HELPS HOTELS GROW AND THRIVE

In recent years there has been a significant shift from desktop to mobile for purchasing items and services, and making bookings, and much of the product’s overhaul focused on this. “Mobile is now the key device for researching and booking of hotels,” William tells us. “For some of our clients 80 per cent of traffic comes from mobile, and overall, around 64 per cent or more of bookings comes from mobile devices. This can of course differ from business to business but there has certainly been a huge shift and mobile isn’t going anywhere. It was very important our new booking engine was made for mobile.”

Knowing the space inside and out and constantly advancing is key to Net Affinity’s offering, and this expertise fosters trust with clients. “Trust is the currency on which we operate,” says William. “We work hard and know how to navigate the complexity of the world and these changing platforms, and we don’t just stay up to date with technology, we also stay up to date with the industry. For example, the dynamic of the guest is changing – you have younger more demanding guests, and many want a seamless booking experience where they don’t want to see anyone; that option is there. It’s important to know how tech is changing the industry too, and this is reflected in the hotels with younger managers who are more tech savvy and understand how tech can make the business more efficient.”

How does William think technology will impact the industry in the next five years? He tells us it will become an even bigger part of how hotels are run: “It’s the way forward and it’s a good thing, an advantage. It will bring about more exposure and visibility but will also change systems within hotel operations and bring in efficiencies.”

“Whatever changes happen, William thinks the industry will always be a resilient and adaptable one. “There are so many ups and downs, but we will continue to evolve as the industry progresses on its journey.” 

For more info on Net Affinity’s booking engine and marketing services visit netaffinity.com, call 01- 293 9906 or email [email protected].

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