ROCKVILLE, MD—Choice Hotels International Inc. is transitioning to choiceEDGE, the first new global reservation system (GRS) from a hotel company in more than 30 years, according to the company. The distribution platform supports more than 6,500 Choice Hotels properties globally.
The platform leads the way for the industry’s shift toward accelerated global digital communication and guest experience personalization through data analytics, according to the company.
ChoiceEDGE and its cloud-based, technically advanced design is built to effectively handle the current and future volume on digital channels. The platform manages all distribution for Choice Hotels, optimizing rate, inventory, availability, shopping, booking and reservations for its website, mobile apps and third-party distribution partners.
This transformational project, which began in 2014, is led by the company’s technology innovation team, based in Phoenix, and is a milestone initiative for the company and Choice President & CEO Pat Pacious.
“There has been an explosion of growth in shopping requests and digital travel sales worldwide over the last decade,” he said. “The industry’s old reservation systems are not designed to handle the volume and velocity of transactions we see today in the digital space. choiceEDGE harnesses the power of cloud computing and big data analytics to help deliver value to both guests and franchisees, and leads the industry in capabilities. Through personalization and machine-learning, we are now able to create the intuitive experience guests want and provide data-driven, holistic solutions to boost efficiencies for our franchisees and throughout our value chain.”
Flexibility, scale and speed to market are critical components of the choiceEDGE platform’s unprecedented design, according to the company. As Choice Hotels continues its growth in the upscale and midscale segments, and internationally, the choiceEDGE product will support its expanded system size, as well as multi-channel distribution and mobile strategies.
Some of the new features of the system include faster-to-market new products, features and third-party connectivity; cloud-based scalability, stability and performance delivered through a “reservation-as-a-service” model; preconfigured connectivity with online travel agents, global distribution systems and property management systems, enabling rapid on-boarding of hotels and instant value delivery; capability to add selling disparate inventory types, including hotel rooms, meeting rooms, vacation rentals and package offerings—or any space for any duration.