- Booking engine as a B2B product set to drive growth
- NASDAQ listing in sight
- Fresh capital injection of $3 million
With the completion of its proprietary booking engine late last year, Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) has moved closer to realizing its motto: Travel Made Easy. Now the technology-driven travel company is intensifying its focus on delivering innovation to the alternative lodging rental (ALR) market and, to do so, has bolstered its balance sheet. The company has closed a round of financing with institutional and accredited investors (http://dtn.fm/i2DGk). The funds are earmarked to expand the B2B white label potential of the booking engine and to get the company ready for a listing on the NASDAQ.
Booking engines are the latest iteration by the travel industry to increase access and choice to consumers. They represent the current stage of developments that began in the post-WWII era, when American Airlines (AA) developed the industry’s first automated booking system. Its esoteric name, “Electromechanical Reservisor” (ER), might have puzzled the average traveler if he were allowed access to it, but he was not. Neither were travel agents. Only AA’s airline personnel could access the ER. The airline followed up the ER system, in 1953, with the tongue-twisting Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment reservation system (SABRE).
AA’s success in the reservation business meant that other airlines needed to follow suit to remain competitive. As a result, United Airlines launched Apollo; Delta Airlines came up with DATAS; and Trans World Airlines responded with PARS. These were all proprietary, silo systems, owned and used exclusively by the airlines that developed them, and they were not linked to each other.
By the 1970s, airlines were seeing the advantages of allowing travel agents access to their systems. As a result, the in-house reservation systems morphed into what became known as computer reservation systems (CRS), through which travel agents could query and make reservations. Soon, third party entities hit on the idea of linking separate computer reservation systems, and global distribution systems (GDS) were born. GDS offered travel agents access to the inventory of all the main airlines. Now that agents were part and parcel of the network, the obvious next step was to offer the traveler himself access through a booking engine.
Through a booking engine, a would-be traveler can specify his or her travel requirements such as point of departure, departure date, destination, return date and class of travel. In response, the booking engine will offer airline seats, hotel rooms, alternative accommodation and a variety of related offerings that fit the bill. This is definitely travel made easy.
Monaker expects that most of its growth in the future will come from offering its booking engine as a B2B white label “Alternative Lodging” “Vacation Rental” product to established providers, such as online travel agencies (OTAs) and cruise providers, particularly since it offers “Instant Booking”. Instant Booking allows travelers to initiate a booking and receive an instant confirmation.
Monaker recently completed a private placement of equity with a group of institutional and accredited individual investors for gross proceeds of $3 million. Certain insiders and board members also participated in the offering, representing $635,000, or approximately 21 percent of the offered amount. Part of the proceeds will go toward further development of its booking engine, which forms the core of Monaker’s alternative lodging rental platform. The fresh capital will also facilitate the company’s efforts to be listed on the NASDAQ, which are presently underway.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MonakerGroup.com
