Room.et launches targeting accommodation convenience

Local Technology Company called Booking Technologies PLC has launched Room.et an online platform that serves as an aggregator by providing a marketplace for hotels, guest houses, and apartment rooms in Ethiopia.
“By using Room.et people can discover, reserve, and list hotel rooms, and it is accessible via a mobile app, and website,” said Natnael Mekonnen, CEO of Booking Technologies adding that Room.et enables users to discover the nearest hotel rooms alongside their price, type of rooms, and services they want to get with alternative payment solutions.
As he said the platform is working to integrate its system with Amole and Telebirr to give alternative payment solutions with seamless and hassle-free hotel booking experience for users.
Users are able to write reviews regarding the service of hotels they have used and are also able to view reviews given by previous hotel users during their search process.
“Room.et enables you to discover the nearest hotel rooms with a filtered price. The key factor where Room.et plays a major role is in making the transaction cycle shorter. In the hospitality industry, where you always have various touch-points with the customer, Booking Technologies PLC has focused on creating a highly efficient, easy-to-use, localized mobile application for the customer.
The company managed to develop an application that allows customers to book a hotel room in simple three steps. In the first step, search query, based on which the application comes up with several suggestions in the locality. The second step is to choose from the room type, choose date and number of rooms, and lastly, just a confirmation click to reserve. “Booking technologies designed a simple business model to work with hotels. It provided owners to follow basic standards of service, features, staff, pricing, security, and then lists them on room.et web portal and application,” said the CEO.
“What triggered us to start this business was the non-existence of local OTA (Online Travel Agency) like Booking.com in Ethiopia. Then when we further studied the market and the result was shocking. This market opportunity for local players made the company be more interested in the hospitality industry,” said Natnael adding that the company had started its process to establish the platform three years ago. After the completion of the feasibility study, Booking Technologies discovered trust and predictability of services as main challenges in the hotel booking experience and an opportunity to fill that gap through an online platform.
“The global pandemic obstructed the company from getting in action. As a result it started its trail operation on March. Currently there are about 20 member hotel found in the platform and we are working to increase the number to give different options for customers,” explained Natnael.