Two hospitality technology companies are merging in a bid to
offer a more comprehensive, integrated solution for hotels looking to drive direct
bookings and optimize the guest experience.
Cendyn
, a provider of cloud software and e-commerce services
for hotels, is combining with
Pegasus
, which provides revenue and distribution solutions
for the same client sector.
The financial terms of the merger are not being disclosed, and
Cendyn CEO and president Tim Sullivan says details about “branding, structure
and leadership” will be shared once the deal is finalized in about a month.
Cendyn and Pegasus have already been connected since early
2019 as sister companies in the investment portfolio of private equity firm Accel-KKR.
The firm has been an investor in Cendyn since 2016 and took a
controlling
interest in the company with a second round of funding
in June 2019. Two
months later, Cendyn
acquired
Rainmaker
and in February of this year,
Cendyn merged with
NextGuest
. In
February 2019 Accel-KKR
made an undisclosed investment
in Pegasus to support its merger with
Travel Tripper.
Sullivan says now, as the travel industry recovers, the combination
of Cendyn and Pegasus will provide the “scale and stability” that the companies’
hotel clients need.
“There’s very little overlap between the companies. This is really
about expanding our capabilities and our reach to deliver on a unified vision –
and that vision is a vertically-integrated technology platform custom built for
the travel and hospitality industry,” Sullivan says.
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“By bringing in the central reservation system and the
booking engine and technically coupling them with our customer data-platform,
it really creates a platform where you now have a true system of record for
guest profile and audience as well as rates. And those can then be delivered to
the website, to the booking engine or to CRM for marketing automation to really
personalize that experience based on what we know about the guest with the
unified profile and what the right rate is to deliver to them at the right time
and via the right channel. So it’s a perfect fit.”
Sullivan says the combined solutions will help hotels grow
the share of bookings that come directly through their website and other brand
channels.
“What we don’t want to see happen is hotel brands cede the
gains they’ve made in the direct booking channel to the OTAs coming out of the
pandemic,” he says.
Says Pegasus CEO Gautum Lulla, “Above all else, we’ll
see longer-lasting and more profitable relationships between hoteliers and
their guests.”
Based in Florida, Cendyn has customers in 143 countries.
Pegasus, based in New York, has clients in 120 countries.