RateGain, the leading travel technology company, has added yet another feather to its cap. The company has been rewarded with membership of the most prestigious Red Herring 100 Asia for being the "Most Promising" company driving the Future of Technology.

Red Herring had evaluated more than 800 private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria. The qualifying criteria include quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

"It has been a challenging and revealing year for most companies across the globe, yet Red Herring received a very impressive list of nominations from Asia Pacific." said Alex Vieux, CEO of Red Herring. He further added, "Companies that believe in constant innovation and consistent strategy, investing in people and technology, managed to overcome these difficult times and RateGain is one of them. They will certainly thrive in the marketplace and become a formidable force in the future.

Mr. Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain, commenting on the recent recognition said, "RateGain has always given equal weightage to application of innovative technology, and value for the customer, resulting in such globally recognized awards and accolades. We express our sincere gratitude to the jury members for providing us the opportunity to be associated with one of the most respected technology awards in Asia. We are happy that our continuous endeavor to provide innovative technology solutions for Online Travel and Hospitality businesses is getting the recognition it thoroughly deserves. The whole team at RateGain would definitely be further motivated to greater heights with recognitions such as these"

Red Herring's annual lists of top private technology companies are an important part of the company's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. To honor the CEOs of Red Herring 100 Asia companies, Red Herring invited each one to present to make a presentation at its Red Herring Asia 2009 event, November 10-11 in Shanghai, China.

Amongst top three finalists in the IT Communication and Entertainment (ICE) and ITES

RateGain, the leading travel technology company, has added yet another feather to its cap. The company has been rewarded with membership of the most prestigious Red Herring 100 Asia for being the "Most Promising" company driving the Future of Technology.

Red Herring had evaluated more than 800 private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria. The qualifying criteria include quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

"It has been a challenging and revealing year for most companies across the globe, yet Red Herring received a very impressive list of nominations from Asia Pacific." said Alex Vieux, CEO of Red Herring. He further added, "Companies that believe in constant innovation and consistent strategy, investing in people and technology, managed to overcome these difficult times and RateGain is one of them. They will certainly thrive in the marketplace and become a formidable force in the future.

Mr. Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain, commenting on the recent recognition said, "RateGain has always given equal weightage to application of innovative technology, and value for the customer, resulting in such globally recognized awards and accolades. We express our sincere gratitude to the jury members for providing us the opportunity to be associated with one of the most respected technology awards in Asia. We are happy that our continuous endeavor to provide innovative technology solutions for Online Travel and Hospitality businesses is getting the recognition it thoroughly deserves. The whole team at RateGain would definitely be further motivated to greater heights with recognitions such as these"

Red Herring's annual lists of top private technology companies are an important part of the company's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. To honor the CEOs of Red Herring 100 Asia companies, Red Herring invited each one to present to make a presentation at its Red Herring Asia 2009 event, November 10-11 in Shanghai, China.

Amongst top three finalists in the IT Communication and Entertainment (ICE) and ITES

RateGain will be exhibiting (Hall number 8, Booth: 8A46A) for the second time at Fitur - the International Tourism Trade Fair, which celebrates its 31st anniversary from 19th- 23rd, January 2011 in Madrid, Spain. The company would be showcasing its competitive price intelligence, reputation management and e-distribution solutions for travel and hospitality companies. “European region and specially Spain has been the biggest market for RateGain. We are exhibiting at Fitur for the second time to meet hotels and online travel companies looking for innovative and intelligent solutions in this region. At the event, we are also inviting companies that are willing to partner with us as well as renowned professionals that are interested in joining our company as sales and business development consultants in this region,” said Bhanu Chopra, Founder and CEO, RateGain. RateGain invites representatives of exhibitor as well as attendee companies to its booth (Hall number 8, Booth: 8A46A) for a face to face meeting with its consultants. Some of the benefits to schedule a prior appointment would be: - A better understanding of how competitive intelligence can offer an edge to your company over your competitors. - Evaluate how e-distribution strategy should be executed for increase in online bookings - Know how easy it is to manage your reputation on social networks - Experience live demos of niche travel products available for hotels, OTAs and other travel companies - Case examples for best practices of top travel and hotel companies - Customized consultation with experts from RateGain. To find out more information or to arrange a meeting at Fitur, please contact Rossanna Alterio, rossanna@rategain.com or telephone +34 653 230 559. RateGain’s Booth Details at International Travel Trade Fair in Madrid (Fitur) Attendees: Yogeesh Chandra, Gary Mayger, Graham Bray and Rossanna Alterio Hall # 8, Booth # 8A46A Email: sales@rategain.com Website: http://www.rategain.com Fitur link: http://www.ifema.es/ferias/fitur/default_i.html

RateGain is showcasing its innovative suite of market intelligence solutions for online travel agents (OTAs), airlines and hotels at the PhoCusWright Conference, 16 - 18 Nov, Phoenix. Considered to be a one-stop solution provider for hotels, airlines and online travel companies, RateGain commands a significant market share in the travel technology vertical across the world. Recently, the company emerged as one of the most awarded travel technology companies by adding another prestigious award – Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 India & Asia Pacific 2010 for the 4th consecutive time in its kitty. RateGain invites delegates and attendees to its booth at PhoCusWright Conference (16th - 18th Nov, 2010) to briefly present and discuss its offerings and how it may be of interest to their business. Interested attendees can also email at sales@rategain.com to schedule an appointment with Bhanu Chopra, CEO and Ron Evans, VP, North America at the conference. About the company RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies, offers innovative web-based solutions to top Online Travel Agents, Airlines, Wholesalers and Hotels in 800 cities across 65 countries. Our solutions are in the areas of Online Inventory Distribution, Competitive Price Intelligence, Online Visibility & Reputation Management and Social Media Marketing. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with its offices across US, Thailand, Spain and UK. For more information, please visit www.rategain.com. For further enquiries, Aliesha Shukla PR & Marketing, RateGain Email: pr@rategain.com

RateGain offers its solutions under its market intelligence, channel distribution and social network marketing suite of products for the travel and hospitality sector that enables these companies to increase their ROI growth with effective online marketing strategies. At World Travel Market show in London (Booth # TT-127), RateGain is launching its unique suite of market intelligence products that offer competitive price intelligence information to its clients. It comprises of 3 solutions: NetReports: A unique web-based price intelligence tool that allows for real-time monitoring of product rates for retail travel businesses like online travel agents, tour operators, wholesalers, airlines, cruise liners and car rentals across various competitor websites. PriceGain-Air: A price intelligence solution specifically designed for Airlines that allows for real-time monitoring of air fares for retail travel businesses like airlines, and Online Travel Agents (OTAs) across various competitor & supplier websites. VisibilityGain: An online visibility monitoring and reputation management platform for hoteliers to track their rankings on search engines & travel sites and to manage reviews & comments on consumer review & social media sites. In the next 3-5 months, RateGain is planning to introduce some more market intelligence solutions for hotels, cruises and car rental companies under this portfolio. RateGain invites online travel agents, airlines and wholesalers to its booth for a one-to-one discussion with its travel technology consultants. Considered to be a one-stop solution provider for hotels, airlines and online travel companies, RateGain commands a significant market share in the travel technology vertical across the world. Recently, the company emerged as one of the most awarded travel technology companies by adding prestigious awards like – Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 India 2010 as well as Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2010 for the 4th consecutive time in its kitty. The company has its negotiations on in the industry and is planning to go for few acquisitions followed by the launch of its IPO by 2012.

For further enquiries, Aliesha Shukla PR & Marketing, RateGain Email: pr@rategain.com

At World Travel Market show in London (Booth # TT-127), RateGain invites distinguished professionals who are interested in representing RateGain in its target markets to its booth TT-127 for a meeting with its top management team. Alternatively, interested candidates can also email their credentials to hr@rategain.com. RateGain has been setting up local presence in countries that are the biggest markets for its products. Following its strategy of being “Glocal” i.e. Global yet Local, the company is on a hiring spree and has expanded its business development & sales teams by recruiting some of the renowned professionals in the US, UK, Spain and Thailand. In past one year, it has come a long way from 140 employees to 250 now. Considered to be a one-stop solution provider for hotels, airlines and online travel companies, RateGain commands a significant market share in the travel technology vertical across the world. Recently, the company emerged as one of the most awarded travel technology companies by adding prestigious awards like – Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 India 2010 as well as Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2010 for the 4th consecutive time in its kitty. The company has its negotiations on in the industry and is planning to go for few acquisitions followed by the launch of its IPO by 2012. For further enquiries, Aliesha Shukla PR & Marketing, RateGain Email: pr@rategain.com

RateGain has been awarded Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 India 2010 for the 4th consecutive time since 2007. Awarded by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, The Technology Fast 50 India is a ranking of India’s 50 fastest-growing technology companies based on percentage revenue growth over the past three years. RateGain shares a special bonding with these awards by Deloitte and has been recognized and awarded for being one of the fastest growing companies in India and Asia-Pac: Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific, 2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India, 2009 Top 50 of Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2008 List Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India 2008 List Top 20 of Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2007 List RateGain's CEO Bhanu Chopra will be receiving the award on 12th November, at Taj West End, Bangalore. Interestingly, Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India nominations will also qualify for automatic nomination to Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2010. Speaking at this great achievement Bhanu Chopra said "It’s a great honor for RateGain and clear acknowledgement from Deloitte for recognizing our stupendous growth in the last 4 years. We are excited to receive this recognition for the fourth time in a row and it vindicates the competitive edge our innovative solutions have offered to our client hotels in 800 cities across 65 countries and online travel agents (OTAs) globally. This award validates our successful effort and recognizes us as a formidable force in the travel technology sector.” About RateGain RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies, offers innovative web-based solutions to top Online Travel Agents, Airlines, Wholesalers and Hotels in 800 cities across 65 countries. Its solutions are in the areas of Inventory Distribution & Revenue Management, Price Intelligence, Online Visibility & Reputation Management and Social Media Marketing. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with its offices across US, Thailand, Spain and UK. For more information, visit www.rategain.com

RateGain announced today that it is going to showcase its suite of competitive market intelligence solution at booth #9, Travel Distribution Summit, Chicago. Now in its 12th successful year, EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Summit North America remains the essential meeting place for Online Travel Professionals to innovate, share fresh knowledge and forge powerful partnerships with unrivalled industry elite.   Speaking at the event, Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain said, “RateGain is known for creating specifically designed market intelligence solutions that empower travel companies with analytical competitive intelligence information to create effective strategies and implement important business decisions”. RateGain’s suite of market intelligence solution for hotel and travel companies has been conceptualized and designed after an in-depth research survey done by the company. RateGain worked very closely with industry experts and thought leaders and came up with this concept of offering different types of business intelligence solutions under one suite – Market Intelligence. As of now, it comprises of 3 solutions: NetReports: A unique web-based price intelligence tool that allows for real-time monitoring of product rates for retail travel businesses like online travel agents, tour operators ,wholesalers, airlines, cruise lines and car rentals across various competitor websites. PriceGain-Air: A price intelligence solution specifically designed for Airlines that allows for real-time monitoring of air fares for retail travel businesses like airlines, and Online Travel Agents (OTAs) across various competitor & supplier websites. VisibilityGain: An online visibility monitoring and reputation management platform for hoteliers to track their rankings on search engines & travel sites and to manage reviews & comments on consumer review & social media sites. In the next 3-5 months, RateGain is planning to introduce some more market intelligence solutions for hotels, cruises and car rental companies under this portfolio. For further enquiries, Aliesha Shukla PR & Marketing, RateGain Email: pr@rategain.com

RateGain expands its portfolio of competitive business intelligence solution by launching PriceGain-Air at World Low Cost Airlines Congress Event, held in London on 28th September, 2010. Organized by Terrapinn, the event was attended by more than 100+ low cost airlines across US, Europe and Asia. Speaking at the launch, Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain said, “RateGain is known for creating solutions that offer a competitive advantage to travel companies and has offered innovative market intelligence solutions for OTAs, Hotels and Tour Operators. We are expanding our current portfolio which presently comprises of NetReports and VisibilityGain, with PriceGain-Air.” Gary Mayger, SVP, Travel – Global added, “With the ever decreasing brand loyalty in the airline world and where fares are constantly changing, it is imperative for the Airlines to maintain a perfect balance between the fares and services offered in order to be always on top of their competition. There is a burgeoning demand in the airline industry to track competition's future pricing in order to implement an effective pricing strategy. PriceGain-Air is specially designed to offer a perfect solution to this increasing demand of comparative price intelligence among airline companies.”  PriceGain-Air is a web-based price intelligence solution specifically designed for Airlines that allows for real-time monitoring of air fares for retail travel businesses like airlines, and Online Travel Agents (OTAs) across various competitor & supplier websites. With PriceGain-Air, the multiple-consumer facing sites can not only manage their online products & fares with ease but are also always updated with each component of the vast number of transactions involved. Its web-based platform provides two delivery methods: the real-time on demand and scheduled reports for high volumes of data. Some of the salient features include: A quick view Dashboard with graphical ‘Competitive Score’ and ‘Competitive Farespace’ views Ability to customize the views as per specific business rules and logic Customized Excel analysis, using macros and color coding, provided to subscribers to ensure data is presented in a way that helps them take business decisions. Multiple ways of generating reports – Consecutive dates, Days out, Distributed dates and Events Create events as per market to track peak periods more closely Ability to even track ancillary components outside of Fare and Tax/surcharges Cache pages for all fares fetched for easy validation of data Data compatibility with any third party decision-making systems like a Revenue Management System or a Pricing System, availability of data as XML feed or flat files Tax and other special components of rates for the products are highlighted clearly as separate columns to ensure apple to apple comparison of rates. To know more about PriceGain-Air, please visit http://www.rategain.com/pricegain-air.html

RateGain upgrades its most popular channel and inventory distribution solution, ChannelGain with two intelligent functionalities, CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) and Reservation Delivery. CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) is an intelligently automated distribution functionality that works like an actual revenue manager. It creates a common pool of inventory allocated for the channels supported and automatically reduces allocations or stops selling based on rooms being sold by those channels. CPI is supported with the new ‘Reservation Delivery’ functionality. Its unique reservation retrieval feature allows instantly fetches the details of a specific reservation made through the reservation confirmation number. It fetches details such as location of the hotel, check-in and checkout dates, room types, rates, which channel it’s been booked from, number of guests and other guest details. This information is then routed to CPI to balance & distribute the remaining inventory accordingly on all the supported channels. These two new features help hotels to distribute inventory equally to all the online channels automatically. This not only helps them to utilize their maximum inventory but also saves them from over bookings which can lead to bouncing of the bookings and bad relations with OTA’s. All leading OTAs & channels across the world support these two features in ChannelGain. Every month, RateGain adds new OTAs in this list of supported channels that support CPI and reservation delivery functionality. Besides CPI, ChannelGain offers several other benefits to hotels. It helps them to simultaneously update their hotel’s rate, inventory and restrictions on 400+ local, regional and global OTAs as per the changing market scenario and seasonal demand. Features like ‘dynamic pricing’ to fluctuate their room rates as per the seasonal demand on a day-today basis, effectively managing distribution mix and rate parity with the capability of managing multiple extranets besides other benefits makes ChannelGain a preferred choice for hotels. To know more about ChannelGain and its unique functionalities, visit www.rategain.com/channelgain For further enquiries, Aliesha Shukla PR & Marketing, RateGain Email: pr@rategain.com

(Derived from Spanish Rapido=Rapid, Zumbido=Buzz) generates rapid buzz for hotels, airlines and online travel agents (OTAs) on social networks

RateGain launches rumbido, a unique referral marketing platform that significantly improves brand visibility and prospects for new customer acquisition by reaching out to friends, families and followers of existing customers on different social networks. Hotels, airlines and OTAs can now seamlessly expand their reach on social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace etc. and convert buzz to sales.

“Regular social media initiatives like fan pages and creation of official accounts fail to or simply don’t know how toextend brand visibility beyond the direct network of fans & followers” said Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain. “This limits the exponential potential of social networks and stalls the online sales process. Our innovation, rumbido provides the opportunity to rapidly increase buzz for brands in social networks that can easily convert to new customers.”  “In today’s fast moving world, who better than your customers are trusted per-se but their word is “Trusted” within their sphere of social influence (i.e. their friends, family and followers) to help grow your business. Further, with two thirds of the Internet population visiting social network sites, businesses cannot afford to ignore social media. “rumbido allows businesses to engage and reward their customers as they emerge into brand ambassadors and open up a new and cost efficient channel of distribution”  added Vishal Jain, VP, Product Management, RateGain

The launch of rumbido coincides with its first client partnership with Holidaynights. Formed in 2003 and catering to over 650,000 passengers per year, Holidaynights is one of the UK’s leading and largest hotel booking sites. This is the first time in the travel industry that any company would move beyond loyalty programs and official presence on social networks to a platform that not only creates a buzz about their brand but also converts it into sales and that too in a cost effective manner. Speaking on this occasion, Steve Endacott, CEO, Holiday Group the parent company of Holidaynights said, “The power of personal recommendation is a proven concept within the internet. Who could be better advocates for your brand than your customers? Rumbido allows Holidaynights to take the money it normally pay Google for clicks and give it to customers who’s recommendation result in sales. Hence it’s a triple win solution with customers, their friends and Holidaynights all gaining something from the process, be it a great value hotel or a exciting new distribution tool”

On Holiday Group, the parent company of Holidaynights, shared that it has launched a new campaign called “Google Bypass”. The group plans to use this to eliminate the “click costs” it pays to Google, as it estimates that each time it sells a holiday via Google, it receives 75% of commission costs, reported ttglive. So rather than paying Google in click costs, it wants to reward the loyalty of anyone that circulates its holidaynights.co.uk website on social networks and via email. It has emailed a unique referrer ID to each of its existing customers, prompting them to spread the word on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and emails. It will then pay individuals £25, via PayPal, each time one of their referrals leads to a booking on holidaynights.co.uk. Rebecca Shipston, head of online development at Holidaynights, said: “We worked out we pay Google an average of £25 per booking and it occurred to us we could bypass Google and give that money to the consumer instead. Emails with deals will soon be sent to Holidaynights’ database of 200,000 people.”

About Rumbido Based on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, Rumbido allows businesses to set up and manage their own company branded referral & reward program in almost all popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace etc. Customers join voluntarily and receive incentives for their referrals, creating a self sustainable and mutually rewarding relationship. It leads to gratification for all parties – The Business (New Bookings), The Referer (Rewards) and The Referee (Offers/deals not generally available outside the program) Additionally, Rumbido creates an integrated social media campaign with a focused campaign to the target audience, unlike random, sporadic bursts of promotion on a handful of social networking sites. About RateGain RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies, offers innovative web-based solutions to its clients in 800 cities across 65 countries. For 3000+ hotels in Europe, Asia and US, RateGain offers an intelligent channel/inventory distribution platform, ChannelGain and VisibilityGain, an online visibility and reputation management solution to facilitate their reach to 400+ global and regional OTAs for an increase in their online bookings. For 400+ travel companies, it offers NetReports & PriceGain, comparative price intelligence solution for OTAs, Hotels & Airlines. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with its offices across US, Thailand, Spain and UK. For more information, visit www.rategain.com.

For media enquiries, please contact: Nishith Srivastava | VP, Product Marketing Email: pr@rategain.com    Phone: +1 312 238 9366; +91-99530-69210

Indian economy is largely driven by the middle & upper middle class society. Hospitality companies are innovating or diversifying themselves and customizing their offerings to suit the increasing spending power of this huge consumer segment. This increasing demand has led to a drastic growth in a specific segment of hospitality industry in India that is categorized as mid-market hotel segment. In the last few years, several leading hospitality groups from this segment have emerged as the fastest growing hotel chains by increasing their presence across most of the metro and 2nd tier cities in India. Some of the prominent names being Lemon Tree, Pride Group, Sarovar Hotels, Fortune Hotels, Ibis, and Choice Hotels. Unlike their traditional counterparts, this segment of mid-market hotels is aggressively pursuing marketing strategies to reach out to markets from where they attract maximum guests. Besides leveraging tried and tested media advertising to create brand visibility, they are actively increasing their reach on not only domestic but global and regional OTAs & distribution channels as well. These platforms offer an in-depth penetration for these brands to specific target markets in India as well as US, Asia and Europe.  Interestingly this growing demand of channel distribution solution compelled RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies with clients in 800 cities across 65 countries, to start thinking about expanding its presence in India.

Since its inception in 2004, RateGain has been focusing extensively on US and European markets and established itself as one of the major market player in these regions.  RateGain started offering its world class channel management platform, ChannelGain to hoteliers in India and soon realized that in the last 6 months, it has become the most preferred channel management solution for mid-market hotels – the fastest growing hotel chains in India In the last 3 months, promising players like Lemon Tree, Pride Hotels, Sarovar Hotels and Rain Tree Hotels have chosen ChannelGain to manage & distribute their inventory across different global, regional and local online channels Nikhil Sharma, Assistant Vice President-Operations, The Lemon Tree Hotel Company said, “As the fastest growing hotel chain in India, we have diverse technological requirements. We measure the success of technology solution by its robust adaptability and bottom line contribution. RateGain understands the industry. They are collaborative in willing to adapt their existing processes to better align with our needs. We value the dependability of the solution.”

ChannelGain’s unique functionality - CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) & Booking Fetch helps hotels to distribute inventory equally to all the online channels automatically. This not only helps them to utilize their maximum inventory but also saves them from over bookings which can lead to bouncing of the bookings and bad relations with OTA’s

Mr. Satyen Jain, CEO, Pride Hotels says‚ ‘‘When we compared ChannelGain with other similar products in the market, we found CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) & Booking Fetch as the unique functionalities of ChannelGain. It can help us in allocating inventory to a common pool rather than individual OTAs, hence saving a lot of time and effort involved.“ Besides CPI, ChannelGain offers several other benefits to hoteliers like Pride Group. ChannelGain helps them to simultaneously update their hotel’s rate, inventory and restrictions on 300+ local, regional and global OTAs as per the changing market scenario and seasonal demand“. Features like ‘dynamic pricing’ to fluctuate their room rates as per the seasonal demand on a day-today basis, effectively managing distribution mix and rate parity with the capability of managing multiple extranets besides other benefits makes ChannelGain a preferred choice for hotels.

To know more about features & benefits of ChannelGain, please click here.

About RateGain RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies, offers innovative web-based solutions to its clients in 800 cities across 65 countries. For 3000+ hotels in Europe, Asia and US, RateGain offers an intelligent channel/inventory distribution platform, ChannelGain, HotelGain, a comparative price intelligence tool to compare rates of hotels and VisibilityGain, an online visibility and reputation management solution to facilitate their reach to 400+ global and regional OTAs for an increase in their online bookings. For 400+ travel companies, it offers NetReports & PriceGain, comparative price intelligence solution for OTAs, Hotels & Airlines. Its latest product offering is Rumbido, a unique social network driven referral marketing platform for hotels, airlines & OTAs. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with its offices across US, Thailand, Spain and UK. For more information, visit http://www.rategain.com.    For media enquiries, please contact: Nishith Srivastava | VP, Product Marketing Email: pr@rategain.com   Phone: +1 312 238 9366; +91-99530-69210

RateGain adds another prestigious name in its clientele list of more than 3000+ global hotels by partnering with The Pride Group. Pride Hotels, one of the prestigious hotel chains in India with state of the art business hotels in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai Hotels, Nagpur and Pune, chooses RateGain’s ChannelGain, an inventory distribution and channel management solution. As per the deal, the relationship would start with integrating ChannelGain with its hotels to manage their online distribution across various channels.
Mr. Satyen Jain, CEO, Pride Hotels says‚ ‘‘When we compared ChannelGain with other similar products in the market, we found CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) & Booking Fetch as the unique functionalities of ChannelGain. It can help us in allocating inventory to a common pool rather than individual OTAs, hence saving a lot of time and effort involved.“ CPI (Common Pool of Inventory) & Booking Fetch helps hotels to distribute inventory equally to all the online channels automatically. This not only helps them to utilize their maximum inventory but also saves them from over bookings which can lead to bouncing of the bookings and bad relations with OTA’s.
	Mr. Amit Khurana, VP, Business Development added, “Besides CPI, ChannelGain offers several other benefits to hoteliers like Pride Group. ChannelGain helps them to simultaneously update their hotel’s rate, inventory and restrictions on 300+ local, regional and global OTAs as per the changing market scenario and seasonal demand“. Features like ‘dynamic pricing’ to fluctuate their room rates as per the seasonal demand on a day-today basis, effectively managing distribution mix and rate parity with the capability of managing multiple extranets besides other benefits makes ChannelGain a preferred choice for hotels. To know more about features & benefits of ChannelGain, please click here
About Pride Hotels Pride Group has positioned itself as an eminently successful chain with fully-owned Five Star Hotels making their mark in Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai and Bangalore, operating under the Brand “The Pride Hotel”. The Pride Group is currently undertaking a massive expansion plan with an objective to emerge as a National Hotel Chain, with a presence in almost all regions of the country, offering world class hospitality standards, combined with excellent ambience and quality service.
About RateGain RateGain, one of the most awarded hospitality and travel technology companies in Asia offering innovative web-based solutions for hoteliers worldwide. RateGain offers channel/inventory management product, ChannelGain and VisibilityGain, an online visibility and reputation management solution, to 3000+ hotels in Europe, Asia and US to facilitate their reach to 400+ global and regional OTAs for an increase in their online bookings. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with a team of more than 200 people in its offices across US, Spain and UK. For more information, visit www.rategain.com.

RateGain, the leading travel technology company, has added yet another feather to its cap. The company has been rewarded with membership of the most prestigious Red Herring 100 Asia for being the "Most Promising" company driving the Future of Technology.

Red Herring had evaluated more than 800 private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria. The qualifying criteria include quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

"It has been a challenging and revealing year for most companies across the globe, yet Red Herring received a very impressive list of nominations from Asia Pacific." said Alex Vieux, CEO of Red Herring. He further added, "Companies that believe in constant innovation and consistent strategy, investing in people and technology, managed to overcome these difficult times and RateGain is one of them. They will certainly thrive in the marketplace and become a formidable force in the future.

Mr. Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain, commenting on the recent recognition said, "RateGain has always given equal weightage to application of innovative technology, and value for the customer, resulting in such globally recognized awards and accolades. We express our sincere gratitude to the jury members for providing us the opportunity to be associated with one of the most respected technology awards in Asia. We are happy that our continuous endeavor to provide innovative technology solutions for Online Travel and Hospitality businesses is getting the recognition it thoroughly deserves. The whole team at RateGain would definitely be further motivated to greater heights with recognitions such as these"

Red Herring's annual lists of top private technology companies are an important part of the company's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. To honor the CEOs of Red Herring 100 Asia companies, Red Herring invited each one to present to make a presentation at its Red Herring Asia 2009 event, November 10-11 in Shanghai, China.

Amongst top three finalists in the IT Communication and Entertainment (ICE) and ITES

Instrumental in creating a revolution of sorts and in its 5th successful year 'The CNBC TV 18 Emerging India Awards' are acknowledged for saluting the undying spirit of entrepreneurship. Partnered by ICICI Bank & CNBC-TV18, the awards have been most sought after amongst Indian Small and Medium Enterprises (SME).

Noida based RateGain, the world's leading Travel Technology products company, has been successively leading the race for the CNBC TV 18 Annual Emerging India Awards 2009. Competing against 300,000 entries, in the IT Communication and Entertainment (ICE) and ITES category, RateGain has established itself in the league of the top three finalists.

Announced early this month, the CNBC TV 18 Annual Emerging India Awards 2009 had invited entries from players across the SME community in the country. After a robust two-phase methodology, RateGain has not only managed to make a breakthrough in the category but has also gained recognition for its innovative products.

Scheduled for November 3rd 2009, the CNBC TV 18 Annual Emerging India Awards 2009 will witness the gala awards ceremony in Mumbai.

Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain, commenting on the development said, "This is another testimonial to our unique business model and the difference we have made to the hospitality sector with our path-breaking web products." He added, "It is also a tribute to the creative talent and commitment that the RateGain development team has shown over the years. I feel proud to be a member of such a team and strongly believe that we are destined for greater things to come." The Emerging India Awards, now in its fifth year, have already been acclaimed as the most definitive business awards recognizing the undying spirit of Indian entrepreneurship and is testament to the fact that the Indian SME community has come of age.

RateGain has been making a mark across the global hospitality sector with its innovative software tools, helping hotels and online travel sites with price comparison, inventory management and customer need identification among other important things, resulting in increased business efficiencies and volumes for them.

RateGain, a leading travel technology company, has been declared a winner in the second place in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 India Program list, a ranking of the fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the nation's leading professional services organizations. Rankings are based on the percentage fiscal year revenue growth over three years from 2006-2008. It may be remembered that this award is in continuation of the first rank achieved by the company in the same program for 2007 i.e. last year.

RateGain's CEO Bhanu Chopra said "We are excited to receive this recognition second time in a row and it vindicates our stand that the niche area of online travel & hospitality that we serve has tremendous growth potential".

"We look forward to making continued contributions to the industry through the introduction of new products like www.hotelly.com, a one stop shop for the consumer to find the best deals, read user reviews and most importantly validate the hotel experience using user-generated videos."

Companies from the Technology Fast 50 India program automatically qualify for participation in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2008 program, which annually recognizes the 500 fastest growing technology companies in Asia Pacific. Last year RateGain was ranked 16th in this program - it was the first Indian company ever to make it to the Top 20 in this ranking.

About RateGain
RateGain in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 India 2007 List RateGain is a Travel Technology Company offering innovative and value-driven e-business solutions to the hospitality and travel industry. The customer portfolio includes top Online Travel Agents, Airline, Accommodation Wholesalers and Hotels. Its solutions are in the areas of Revenue Management, Distribution, Sales and Marketing. RateGain is one of the fastest growing companies in the travel technology industry and since inception; it has introduced products with innovative features that offer unparalleled benefits to its consumers. Since it began operations in April 2004, RateGain has been continuously innovating and launching new products like its latest offering www.hotelly.com, a one stop shop for the consumer to find the best deals, read user reviews and most importantly validate the hotel experience using user-generated videos. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at www.rategain.com

RateGain, a leading travel technology company, has made it to NASSCOM's list of Featured Emerging Companies today. It is recognition of the incredible growth and innovation at RateGain and its focus on building innovative products rather than following the more popular model of providing technology services. The focus on creating IP through products has also enabled RateGain to achieve rapid incremental revenue growth without having to increase the team size or related overheads substantially. RateGain's COO Aqeel Ahmed said "RateGain had topped the ranking at Deloitte Tech Fast50 India 2007 program. We are thankful to NASSCOM for recognizing the growth potential of our company while featuring it as an emerging company" .

About NASSCOM:
NASSCOM is a global trade body with over 1200 members, of which over 250 are global companies from the US, UK, EU, Japan and China. NASSCOM's member companies are in the business of software development, software services, software products, IT-enabled/BPO services and e-commerce. NASSCOM has been the strongest proponent of global free trade in India. It was set up in 1988 to facilitate business and trade in software and services and to encourage advancement of research in software technology.

About RateGain
RateGain is a Travel Technology Company offering innovative and value-driven e-business solutions to the hospitality and travel industry. The customer portfolio includes top Online Travel Agents, Airline, Accommodation Wholesalers and Hotels. Its solutions are in the areas of Revenue Management, Distribution, Sales and Marketing. RateGain is one of the fastest growing companies in the travel technology industry and since inception; it has introduced products with innovative features that offer unparalleled benefits to its consumers. Since it began operations in April 2004, RateGain has been continuously innovating and launching new products. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at www.rategain.com

RateGain Contact
Vishal Jain
vjain (at) rategain.com
+91-120-4327531

RateGain has unveiled its latest SAS (software as a service) "NetReports", that provides crucial competitor analysis to the Product Managers of Tour Operators, Wholesalers and Online Travel Agencies. .

London, UK:
st common and challenging question on each hotel contracting professional's mind is:
. Is their negotiated hotel rate, better than their competitor's?
. Is their travel portal, able to follow the "BEST PRICE GUARANTEE" on the website?
. Is their contracting-team fast enough to re-negotiate the rates according to market dynamics?
NetReports is a real time application that allows the hotel-contracting teams to track the rates of their products across different competitor websites and derive conclusions about their competitiveness in the market. This vital market intelligence provides the contracting team with ample ammunition to renegotiate their product rates with different suppliers.

High speed analysis is one of the most crucial components of the NetReports platform. "Slicing and dicing of data in order to arrive at crucial decision making capabilities is the core strength of our application" said Bhanu Chopra, CEO RateGain. "We want travel companies to reach decisions fast and increase their revenues with the help of our reports" said Bhanu.

Everything about NetReports is according to a travel-website's needs. "We understand that every travel company is unique in its needs, hence we are always eager to customize our application so that the data representation is on familiar grounds for our subscribers" said Siddhartha Kothari, Head of Market Intelligence RateGain. "We guarantee a return on investment of minimum 2000% to our subscribers" said Siddhartha.

At present the Top 50 Travel websites of the world are utilizing NetReports for crucial Market Intelligence Data.

For an online demonstration of the NetReports Application; please call Siddhartha Kothari at +44 0208 432 6221 or email at skothari(@)rategain(.)com

About RateGain
RateGain is a travel technology company developing various software applications for the hospitality and travel industry in the revenue management, internet marketing and inventory distribution segments. Its clients include top travel agencies, tour operators and wholesalers in Europe, Australia and the Americas. Over 4000 hotels including major hotel chains also utilize the software application for revenue distribution enhancements. For more information, please visit: www.rategain.com

RateGain IT Solutions today announced that it has been ranked 16th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2007, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in Asia Pacific. RateGain had already topped the Deloitte Fast 50 India 2007 list earlier in November 2007.

The event, now in its sixth year, was held at the InterContinental Hotel in Hong Kong. The awards ceremony included a first-ever panel discussion featuring 5 winning company CEOs, which included RateGain's CEO Bhanu Chopra. Tailored for the C-suite of the winning companies, the interviews addressed a series of key industry-specific topics.

RateGain's CEO Bhanu Chopra said "We are excited to receive this award and be the first Indian company to be amongst top 20 in AsiaPac for the first time in 3 years. Our focus will now be to carry this growth momentum into 2008 by looking at both organic and inorganic opportunities."

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific program recognizes technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of annual revenue growth in the Asia Pacific region during the past three years. It includes those companies based in Australia, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau SAR, Malaysia, Philippines, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The program is supported by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 initiatives, which rank high-growth technology companies by location or specifically defined geographic area and is sponsored by Deloitte's Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) global industry group.

About RateGain
RateGain is a Travel Technology Company offering innovative and value-driven e-business solutions to the hospitality and travel industry. The customer portfolio includes top Online Travel Agents, Airline, Accommodation Wholesalers and Hotels. Its solutions are in the areas of Revenue Management, Distribution, Sales and Marketing. RateGain is one of the fastest growing companies in the travel technology industry and since inception; it has introduced products with innovative features that offer unparalleled benefits to its consumers. Since it began operations in April 2004, RateGain has been continuously innovating and launching new products. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at: www.rategain.com

About Deloitte
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, its member firms, and their respective subsidiaries and affiliates. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is an organization of member firms around the world devoted to excellence in providing professional services and advice, focused on client service through a global strategy executed locally in nearly 140 countries. With access to the deep intellectual capital of approximately 150,000 people worldwide, Deloitte delivers services in four professional areas-audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services-and serves more than 80 percent of the world's largest companies, as well as large national enterprises, public institutions, locally important clients, and successful, fast-growing global companies. Services are not provided by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein, and, for regulatory and other reasons, certain member firms do not provide services in all four professional areas. As a Swiss Verein (association), neither Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other's acts or omissions. Each of the member firms is a separate and independent legal entity operating under the names "Deloitte," "Deloitte & Touche," "Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu," or other related names.

RateGain Contact:
Name : Vishal Jain
Phone : +91-120-4327531
Email : vjain(@)rategain(.)com

RateGain, a leading travel technology company, has topped Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 India Program list, a ranking of the fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the nation's leading professional services organizations. Rankings are based on the percentage fiscal year revenue growth over three years from 2005-2007.

RateGain's CEO Bhanu Chopra said "We are excited to receive this reward and it vindicates our stand that the niche area of online travel & hospitality that we serve has tremendous growth potential".

"We look forward to making continued contributions to the industry through the introduction of new products in collaboration with our customers such as our Beyond the Browser Communications Platform."

Companies from the Technology Fast 50 India program automatically qualify for participation in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2007 program, which annually recognizes the 500 fastest growing technology companies in Asia Pacific.

About RateGain
RateGain is a Travel Technology Company offering innovative and value-driven e-business solutions to the hospitality and travel industry. The customer portfolio includes top Online Travel Agents, Airline, Accommodation Wholesalers and Hotels. Its solutions are in the areas of Revenue Management, Distribution, Sales and Marketing. RateGain is one of the fastest growing companies in the travel technology industry and since inception; it has introduced products with innovative features that offer unparalleled benefits to its consumers. Since it began operations in April 2004, RateGain has been continuously innovating and launching new products. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at: www.rategain.com

About Deloitte
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, its member firms, and their respective subsidiaries and affiliates. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is an organization of member firms around the world devoted to excellence in providing professional services and advice, focused on client service through a global strategy executed locally in nearly 140 countries. With access to the deep intellectual capital of approximately 150,000 people worldwide, Deloitte delivers services in four professional areas-audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services-and serves more than 80 percent of the world's largest companies, as well as large national enterprises, public institutions, locally important clients, and successful, fast-growing global companies. Services are not provided by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein, and, for regulatory and other reasons, certain member firms do not provide services in all four professional areas

As a Swiss Verein (association), neither Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other's acts or omissions. Each of the member firms is a separate and independent legal entity operating under the names "Deloitte," "Deloitte & Touche," "Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu," or other related names.

RateGain Contact:
Name : Vishal Jain
Phone : +91 120 2587749
Email : vjain(@)rategain(.)com

MUMBAI: More Indians have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug than before. About 82 Indian companies made it to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia-Pacific companies this year, compared with 48 last year.

India tied with South Korea for the second spot for the number of entrepreneurs, according to Steven Dow, programme director, Deloitte Asia-Pacific Regional Office.

At the number one spot is Taiwan, which had 99 companies in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia-Pacific list. Compared to India, China trails behind with only 53 companies, while Japan and Australia have 63 and 62 companies, respectively in the list.

The companies that made it to Technology Fast 50 of India have recorded an average three-year revenue growth of 489%. The top five companies have a collective average three-year revenue growth of 1,637%. The fastest growing company in this list was RateGain IT Solutions, a firm providing technology solutions to travel and hospitality industries.

The Technology Fast 50 list was dominated by software companies (52%) followed by communications and networking companies (12%). The rest were internet communications, biotech and pharma firms.

According to a majority of the winners, the factor that contributed most to their growth was entering new markets and expanding their customer base. The biggest operational challenge in maintaining this rapid growth was expectedly, finding, hiring and retaining qualified employees.

For India, more than for Asia Pacific and EMEA, the initial funding was mostly through own efforts and resources rather than through venture capital, angel investors or private equity.

But more interestingly, a larger percentage difference was in how companies protected their intellectual property. In India, compared to Asia Pacific and EMEA, more companies protected their IP by training their employees to reduce IP theft as opposed to hiring third party specialists to advise on IP protection.

Read more...

RateGain IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, a leading Travel Technology Company is pleased to announce that it has achieved Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI for Development V1.2) Level 3 rating. This achievement demonstrates RateGain's continued commitment in providing high quality systems and software solutions to the hospitality and travel industry.

The assessment encompassed a thorough review of project management, engineering, support and process management practices.

On this achievement, Aqeel Ahmed (COO) said that the CMMI certification validates the already implemented elaborate process adherence in the company at all stages of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

RateGain uses CMMI for Development V1.2 model to focus on improving processes in the organization. By using its essential elements of effective processes for one or more disciplines, we can achieve evolutionary improvement path from ad hoc, immature processes to disciplined, mature processes with improved quality and effectiveness.

What we gain is increased productivity and quality, improved cycle time, and more accurate and predictable schedules and budgets.

What CMMI means to RateGain:

1. Efficient Review methodologies leading to tracking defects with the Zero Phase difference.
2. Increased Productivity
3. Keeping a check on Performance measures like Schedule, Effort etc.
4. Transparent stakeholder involvement
5. Ensuring customer satisfaction by delivering quality and cost effective solutions on time and every time.

About RateGain
RateGain is a Travel Technology Company offering innovative and value-driven e-business solutions to the hospitality and travel industry. Our solutions are in the areas of Revenue Management, Sales and Marketing. Our continuous endeavor is to provide innovative solutions that help our clients maximize their ROI and achieve their business goals. RateGain aspires to be a world class Travel Technology provider offering innovative solutions that maximizes ROI of its' clients and adds tangible value to their bottom lines.

Ramada signs for HotelGain rate shopping and YieldGain channel management solutions

CHICAGO (March 1, 2006) - RateGain (rategain.com), a leading US-based software services company providing web-based competitive price intelligence and channel management solutions to the hospitality industry, has signed a deal with Ramada Jarvis Hotels.

As per the agreement, Ramada Jarvis has chosen RateGain's HotelGain rate shopping and YieldGain channel management solutions for all its 45 hotels.

Bhanu Chopra, Chief Executive Officer, RateGain IT Solutions Private Limited, said: "This deal with Ramada Jarvis Hotels exemplifies our aggressive growth in the hotels customer segment. We continue to penetrate deeper into the European markets."

On new deal, Chopra added: "We got this account mainly due to the salient features of our products, their simplicity and easy to use offerings."

"Our focus is to keep evolving our products. One of the key areas is to enable integration of our products with the CRS/PMS companies, saving them more time and improving their productivity. There has been a constant push to release new features. For Rate Shopping, we are now providing customized data view tool for brands that includes Rate Parity reports and Benchmarking reports for major markets under each star segment," said Chopra.

HotelGain Net Reports provides complete overview of the competitive market in one easy use interface. With the HotelGain solution, the clients not only have the base price but also have the capability to "slice and dice" it for finding trends.

YieldGain is a web-based channel management software application enabling hoteliers to manage rates/availability and allocation on different websites. Using this one interface, hoteliers can update rates and allocation on multiple websites and also get alerts.

This powerful tool has following features:

" Manage multiple properties and multiple websites using one interface.
" Consolidated view of inventory positions and rates on different websites.
" Simultaneous and real-time updates of rates and inventory on multiple websites.
" Option to update rates for multiple days (weekdays and weekends) at the same time.
" Update rate restriction e.g. minimum length of stay (LOS), taxes, no. of adults etc.
" Update inventory close-out for multiple days.
" Track request history and log of successful and unsuccessful/pending requests.

"YieldGain is a convenient alternative to manual loading of rates on different websites. Besides, the usual benefits of automation, YieldGain offers following benefits: It can be used anywhere, anytime. No need to download any software; Ability to update rates and inventory frequently for superior revenue management, in turn leading to increased revenues and curve tapping of revenue opportunities; Extremely easy to effect rate parity across different channels; Consolidated views enables superior rates and allocation planning across different channels," said Chopra.

About RateGain
RateGain is a leading US-based software services company providing web-based competitive pricing intelligence to the travel industry. The company specializes in rate shopping tool with its portfolio comprising HotelGain for hotels and online travel agents, AirGain for airlines and CarGain for car rental companies. RateGain, with offices in Chicago and New Delhi, has over 100 employees. www.rategain.com

Using its proprietary RGML (XML), clients can now integrate competitor pricing and availability with their revenue management applications. The service is targeted to Hoteliers, Online travel Agents to integrate competitor information seamlessly with their revenue management applications. The service is also targeted to yield management companies, revenue management companies, CRS, PMS providers. The addition of price intelligence by these vendors can bring additional benefits to the end customer.

Author Bhanu Chopra, RateGain- bchopra(@)rategain(.)com

Recently Travel search or meta search(as they call it) has become a hot topic. Both the industry experts and wall street analyst predict this as the next hot topic in vertical search engine technology. So much so there are dedicated events on this topic that are being organized by Phocus Wright -Travdex (Dallas - May 2005) and EyeForTravel - Travel Search(Philadelphia - June 2005)

In this debate whether they will erode market share for Online Travel Agents, there is no question that they would challenge the current profitability margins for Online Travel Agents. Now to discuss this debate, it is fair to understand this debate from the perspective of the consumer and the Travel Suppliers.

Travel Search- From the eyes of Consumer
Positives	Negatives
Ability to do comparison-shopping and get the best deal. Save time as they no longer have to search multiple sites.	There is no doubt that the customer would benefit enormously by being able to compare the rates across different Online travel agent websites and supplier brand websites. However there is an assumption that the Travel search is actually presenting the best rates for travel needs of the customer. The very fact that the business model of most of these websites is based on CPC questions the ability of Travel Search to recommend unbiased best rates. Tends to commoditize Travel product. This creates an inability to differentiate travel product. With Dynamic packaging in place and the ability to add entertainment and city tours on some online intermediary sites such as Expedia, there is no clear way currently that travel search can indicate these differentiations as they compare travel products

Travel Search - From the Eyes of Travel Supplier
Positives	Negatives
Lower cost of distribution - Eliminates net rates and now you really only need to pay for CPC (in most cases). More control on your inventory. Customer acquisition happens at your end.	Have to pay for referrals in CPC though they might not result in bookings. Not performance oriented.

Online Travel Agents - From the Eyes of Customer
Positives	Negatives
Provides a mechanism for a customer to search on hotels based on their preferences/ Fulfilled by Travel Agent and thus relieves them from the additional effort involved in visiting Travel supplier site and filling out information every time for each travel supplier. Ability to dynamically package Airline with hotels and car rentals. Contact center/support center - more and more of these online travel agents supplement information on their website with 800 number support.	Have to search multiple websites to find best deal. Consumer paranoia that you might not have the best deal.

Online Travel Agents - From the Eyes of Travel Suppliers
Positives	Negatives
Huge customer base Bigger advertising budget thus your product/properties get more exposure. Minimal technological investment as Online intermediaries provide direct interfaces to CRS and also do dynamic packaging on their end Valuable distribution partner	High commissions Lack of control

Some other comments
"In today's healthier economic climate where demand for travel is high, Travel Search websites like Kayak certainly appear to have the upper hand when it comes to finding price comparisons between travel suppliers. However, if or when the travel market slumps, travel suppliers will only be too keen to go back to the traditional on-line travel agencies to help stimulate the market. Travel Search may represent a cheaper cost of sale in the short run, but the reality is that suppliers will have to open up distribution channels at some point, and this is when travel agents represent the best value and choice for customers.

From a consumer's point of view, although Travel Search is excellent, particularly when searching for a commoditized product like short-haul flights, there is the danger that these sites provide too much choice, particularly in the hotel market. I liken it to dining out: Some restaurants have a menu that is 10 pages long and offer everything from around the world. Suddenly, it becomes very difficult to choose a dish. Other restaurants have a menu 1 page long, but you know instantly what you want to order. Travel agents know what sells, and although providing a broad range is important, having the depth of knowledge about your core products is what really matters. It is this which differentiates travel agents from travel search." '- Jamie Crain - Commercial Manager

In summary, there is no doubt that the Online Travel Agents model would have to evolve and embrace value additions such as Dynamic packaging in order to be able to differentiate the product they sell. Travel Search holds a lot of promise and it has to be seen how it affects the current Online Travel Agents model.

CHICAGO (February 8, 2005): RateGain, a leading US-based provider of Innovative Price intelligence solutions, has been selected by leading technology and travel services provider CNG Group plc to provide the Irish-based operation with quality data about competitive Internet rates for hotels.

With an inventory of over 25,000 hotels, CNG’s private rate hotel programme for travel agents and affiliates is one of the biggest in the world. CNG also owns the major consumer-facing hotel booking web site, placestostay.com.

Through its HotelGain solution, RateGain will provide CNG with a real time flow of competitive hotel pricing data to support revenue management processes and systems.

“RateGain’s pricing intelligence solution will help us assess and adjust our private rate hotel pricing in a highly competitive marketplace,” said Anneke Weenen, CNG’s director of revenue.

About CNG
CNG Travel Group plc designs and develops integrated technology solutions for the global travel industry. CNG’s proprietary Travel Lodging Connector (TLC) software enables travel agents and over 1,200 affiliate partners to book with over 25,000 hotels at private rates comparable to those of major online booking services while earning enhanced commissions. As well as owning Tzell Travel, one of the largest corporate travel agencies in the USA, CNG also owns consumer hotel booking portal placestostay.com, one of the US’s largest online hotel booking directories, available in seven languages and providing booking access to thousands of hotels worldwide. Founded by CEO Finbarr Power in 1999, CNG floated on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market in May 2004, raising £22m. It is currently capitalised at £62 million and employs over 350 staff in Europe and the USA. www.cngtravel.com , www.placestostay.com

About RateGain
RateGain is a software services company providing Internet-based competitive pricing intelligence to the travel industry. The mission is to deliver a comprehensive view of Internet based pricing information to merchant travel portals, airlines, hotel chains, travel inventory consolidators, online retail industry and market research firms.