Online Travel Biz Wotif.com Wins Top Support Award

A website that has revolutionised the travel industry, particularly for small business, has won the prestigious Most significant contribution from a business with more than $10m turnover Vero Excellence in Business Support Award 2007.

Tania Witheford wotif.com's New Zealand manager receives Wotif.com's award from Vero's Roger Bell - Click for big version

The wotif.com online accommodation booking service based in Auckland took out the award for providing cost efficiencies and savings to small and medium enterprises (SME).

In 2000 wotif.com pioneered the selling of accommodation online in Australia and New Zealand and has become the leading player in this competitive sector. It runs an online booking engine that sells vacant rooms into the next 28 days, displaying ‘live’ hotel inventory in a rate matrix with immediate booking confirmation. For suppliers wotif.com provides not only an internet distribution channel but also a sales and marketing tool where the supplier maintains total control of inventory allotments, rates, inclusion and representation.

Through wotif.com smaller organisations were provided with cost savings when booking accommodation that they could not previously access, given that most business rates were only accessible to large corporations that could leverage volume as a bargaining tool.

The Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards 2007 were presented by Hon. Lianne Dalziel, Minister for Small Business, at a black tie gala dinner attended by nearly 600 VIPs, influencers, media and business support guests in Auckland on Thursday, 31 May, 2007. She said she was in awe of the tremendous talent, energy and passion in New Zealand’s SME sector.

“I am grateful to those who have allowed me to share the secret of turning a good idea into a commercial proposition and taking on the world. I have said that SMEs are important to the economy because of their numbers – 96 percent of all businesses – but it is their unrealised potential that is the key to economic transformation,” said Dalziel.

Winners were selected by evaluators from the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation, a ‘not for profit’ organisation committed to improving the performance and capability of organisations by promoting and utilising a best practice business performance excellence framework based on established international criteria. The awards are the only nationwide awards for business support.

“We wholeheartedly believe the future competitiveness of New Zealand business lies in quality and a key ‘point of difference’,” Roger Bell, CEO of Vero, the awards’ principal sponsor said. “The calibre of this year’s winners is outstanding.”

Evaluators this year were looking for companies with a track record in making New Zealand business owners more successful, says the event’s creator and business support sector specialist, Sarah Trotman.

The Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards are now in their third year. “The awards continue to attract more applications and, following a rigorous evaluation process, provide valuable recognition to the pre-eminent business support organisations,” says Mike Watson from the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF) which provides the independent judging process for all entries.

wotif.com now has nearly 8000 properties in 38 countries available to its customer base comprising unmanaged business travellers and short-break leisure travellers. At wotif.com New Zealand more than 10,000 bookings are made each month with broadband uptake increasing bookings constantly. wotif.com was founded seven years ago by Australian entrepreneur Graeme Wood and in 2006 became a listed company on the Australian Stock Exchange.

The wotif.com business model focuses on providing the highly fragmented accommodation industry with an efficient online inventory and yield management tool that gives suppliers real time control over allocation and rates. This enables suppliers to yield manage inventory in periods of low demand (by selling empty rooms at a discount) and high demand (by enhancing yields from low vacancy rates).

In this competitive market wotif.com says it has had to constantly innovate and provide exceptional service to maintain its dominant position in the market and to achieve this has employed a number of teams (marketing, PR and product).

With 12 categories this year, the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards drew entries from a wide range of organisations from right around New Zealand. This year’s Supreme winner was Kea, a business network organisation connecting New Zealand’s Global Talent Community. It also won the award for Most significant contribution by an organisation to the high growth sector.

See wotif.com for more information.

ENDS

More information: For information on winners and photos please see excellenceinbusinesssupport.co.nz

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