During a trip to Sydney we took the opportunity to sit down with Mike Ford, Founder and Managing Director at SiteMinder. Mike shares with us the challenges he faced building SiteMinder to the business it is today, the current state of the hotel technology space, Direct versus OTA and 3rd party bookings, Book on Google, and other great insights.

Chapters

00:33 - Background

05:28 - Describing what SiteMinder does

06:28 - SiteMinder scaling challenges

10:09 - Direct Reservations versus OTA and 3rd party Bookings

13:39 - Book on Google

15:26 - Technology challenges for independent hotels

20:02 - New application categories

23:32 - Mike’s opinion on technology in the next 3-5 years

27:06 - 5 minutes with a room of hoteliers

This podcast is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

You prefer watching the interview? Find the video version here.