September 2021 Release Notes: New features and Improvements

New features & Improvements

Direct Booking: Partner integration program (Plug-in Apps)

The Digital Partner Program allows technology products and services partners to be rapidly implemented, piloted, and launched in a simple and standardised way. The program opens the door to many prospective partners wanting to connect with Siteminder which will increase the value of both SiteMinder’s booking engine and the digital partner.

As part of our digital partner integration program, we successfully deployed Sojern and Lassie in production. We've also made some improvements to the Plug-ins:
- We now refer to “digital partners” as “Plug-in apps”
- Tracking issue for The Hotels Network has been fixed

Direct Booking: Booking Engine

We've made some enhancements to the following features:
- Accessibility improvement: Added alt tags for all room type images
- Extras improvement: Display quantity of extra items booked to guest and hotel
- Translation Enhancements and Issues

Transactions: SMPay launch in 13 European Countries

We have launched SiteMinder Pay in 13 new European countries, including: The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia, Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Belgium.
We’ve also made it easier to find Pay within our products. SiteMinder customers can now see the relevant landing pages and banners within all of our products, including a registration link to open a new account.

Channel Manager: General availability of Occupancy Based Pricing Inventory from PMS/RMS

On Channel Manager we’ve released the Occupancy Based Pricing inventory feature giving customers the ability to specify a different price for a room depending on the number of occupants of the room. Occupancy-Based Pricing rates can be specified in certain PMS and RMS platforms that are supported.
These rates are viewable in the Channel Manager’s inventory, and they are sent to supported channels. Pricing using OBP helps properties increase their yield and appear in more search results on channels.

Channel Manager: Airbnb - Un-list a listing when disabling

Currently, when an Airbnb channel or listing is disabled, the listing remains advertised on Airbnb.
With this change, when a listing is disabled on CM, the listing will also be delisted on Airbnb. Also, when a listing is re-enabled, the listing will be re-listed on Airbnb.

Channel Manager: Expedia - Combine Email Addresses

Currently, when an Airbnb channel or listing is disabled, the listing remains advertised on Airbnb.
With this change, when a listing is disabled on CM, the listing will also be delisted on Airbnb. Also, when a listing is re-enabled, the listing will be re-listed on Airbnb.

Channel Manager: IDeaS OBP Rate Modifier Enhancement

This change will allow users to optionally select to configure a rate modifier per occupant level (1-5) as well as for each IDeaS rate.

Channel Manager: SiteConnect Channel Auto Activation

The awaiting setup state for the activation process of all SiteConnect channels is being removed.
This update will reduce support cases by an estimated 300 to 800 per case per month and It will also create a faster channel activation process for the user.