RateBoard’s annual review 2018

We have so many plans and dreams that we try to advance them day by day. It's incredible what RateBoard has achieved during this year! We look back to a successful 2018 full of events, which we would like to review here.

About us

The RateBoard team has grown from 10 to 15 employees. Especially the IT department and the Revenue Management team are successfully growing. A consequence of this is a lack of space in the existing premises, because our office is too small. The head office in Innsbruck as well as the branch office in Vienna will move to a larger office at the end of the year. From 2019, you will find us in Fallmerayerstraße 6 in Innsbruck and in Fröhlich-Sandner-Straße in Vienna.

Our customers

The strong growth of the company is no coincidence. The Revenue Management software is required both from customers and investors. Under the leadership of the “aws Gründerfonds”, RateBoard received a seven-figure investment from leading entrepreneurs of the tourism industry at the beginning of June. The co-investors include the companies Next Floor, Business Angel Gregor Hoch and Otmar Michaeler. The topic of Revenue Management has become very popular outside the city and chain hotel industry. RateBoard´s customers increased by 100% from 2017 to 2018. RateBoard offers exactly the right solution of software-supported revenue management for small and medium-sized businesses as well as for chains. We have established ourselves in the Austrian, German and South Tyrolean markets. A milestone is the partnership with one of the biggest hotel associations in the German-speaking area, i.e. Familotel. From now on, RateBoard will be a strategic partner for the more than 60 independent hotel businesses on the subject of Revenue Management.

RateBoard offers a valuable Business Intelligence solution not only for hotel businesses, but also for tourism associations. Since March, the tourism associations in the holiday destination Zell am See-Kaprun have been taking the next step towards digitization together with RateBoard. Very pleasant is also the admission of RateBoard as startup partner by the ÖHV (Austrian hoteliers association).

Events

During 2018, RateBoard took part to many events. Exactly to 6 trade fairs from Berlin to Rimini and to many conferences in the hotel and tourism sector. Here the 6 trade fairs: trade fair Riva, “ITB” in Berlin, “FAFGA” in Innsbruck, “TTG” in Rimini, “GastroTageWest” in Essen and “Alles für den Gast” in Salzburg. RateBoard was present as a speaker at the following events: in March at the Revenue Forum in Milan, in April at the Knowledge Brunch of the HNS Academy in Salzburg, Innsbruck and Vienna. In May, our Revenue Manager Anna Beneder held a practical course for the students of the University of Innsbruck in Landeck. CEO Matthias Trenkwalder was speaker at the conference Tourism Fast Forward  in Mayrhofen, Zillertal. In September, our Revenue Manager Nazarena Donetti took part to the live interview on the Italian Facebook group “Revenue Management”. The recording, which lasted 90 minutes in Italian, has had over 1000 requests! The autumnal season will end with the HSMA Hotelcamp in the GenoHotel Baunatal. In the last month of the year there will be two events: the Direktbucher Kongress in Vienna and the Sales Day at the tourism association 3 Zinnen in Innichen. As we can see, RateBoard is very well established in the German-speaking market and 2019 will be as positive as the previous 2018.

Technology

The annual balance sheet regarding interfaces shows fixed integrations with 23 hotel softwares and 13 channel managers. In this way, we are the only one on the RM software market who offers such a huge amount of interfaces. Among others, the certification by Oracle and Protel has been completed in 2018. Thanks to these technical partnerships, it is possible to serve 70% of the German-and Italian-speaking hotel market.

In the last 12 months, RateBoard’s software has been optimized and extended. One highlight is that the minimum and maximum length of stay can be set as restriction for arrival and departure days. Another innovation was the completion of the “forecast” tool. This serves, in addition to the dynamic price recommendations, to develop a long-term price strategy. Based on historical booking data, it will be generated a forecast of the price development, which enables the hotelier to make future price decisions on the basis of well-founded data. The “budget” tool (a monthly balance sheet for KPI Logis revenue, sold rooms, occupancy, ADR, RevPAR) was extended by targets. In addition to the comparison of current versus previous year, it is also possible to store targets and check how they can be reached. The entire design has been optimized for a better usability. Support was greatly expanded:  live chats enable users to communicate with a revenue manager directly from the system, and digital guides help users through their applications click by click. Many of these innovations come from hoteliers’ feedbacks. RateBoard is always about feedback from customers, in order to improve the software and itself.

Awards

On the 26th November 2018 took place the final for the title “Travel Startup 2018” in the Google Center in Hamburg. The event was organized from Travel Industry Club and the Internet Travel Association. After RateBoard had already impressed the jury in Vienna and emerged as winner, we can now proudly claim to be one of the best travel startups in Europe.

The RateBoard team would like to thank all of you who supported us and put their trust in our company - THANK YOU!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Request demo now and start in 2019 together with RateBoard!