Myanmar tours website acquires UK technology
AS TOUR OPERATORS in Myanmar are eyeing to partner with foreign firms to serve their clients better, Flymya.com, the nation’s leading hotels and tours services website, has acquired Switch.cm, a London-based start-up specialising in building reservations platforms for the hotel and airline industry, for US$ 600,000.
Mike Than Tun Win, chief executive officer of Flymya.com, said in an interview that the acquisition of Switch.cm's hotel software would allow his firm to leverage its local expertise to deploy world class technology to small and medium--sized hotels as it continues its growth as the leading over-the-air (OTA) in Myanmar and the region.
“We look forward to utilising the software to provide an added value to our hotel partners. It offers the same function as expensive hotel management software selling in the market with many local hotels cannot afford. It will be provided free to help local hotels get management software to help them sell online easily and generate more income,” he said.
Mike said the software would help create a direct Application Programming Interface (API) architecture for Flymya's hotel partners to deliver real-time price and availability to consumers.
Widely used
The software is widely used in 41 countries including the United States, South America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Asian countries. In Myanmar, it was just launched. For the initial period, the firm will be charging some service income for processing their customer payments online.
“For hotels, we wanted to focus on regional hotel owners who might be intimidated by legacy software, especially small and medium-sized hotels. We will carry on to expand customers, based on Indonesia and Myanmar and Asean as our main focus,” he said.
“People generally take for granted the incredibly sophisticated architecture that goes behind making a hotel reservation,” he added.
The use of advanced technology is still a new concept in small and medium-sized hotels in Myanmar. Yet, Flymya.com has planned to help them address such challenges by taking over the user-friendly and simple software which can help them a great deal with hotel reservations management.
“Major challenges that local small and medium-sized hotels are facing depends on the fact that there is no local technical support and no up-to- date technical knowledge training since most of the hotel operation software are based in foreign countries,” he said.
Mike assures of offering 24/7 customer support 365 days, thanks to the firm’s onground presence. He promises to support all the technical solutions and trainings to its hotel partners anywhere, anytime related to the software.
Mike said he had a chance encounter with Jeff Pan, the founder of Switch.cm, and his team in the closing minutes of the Tech in Asia conference in Singapore last year as they were on their way to the airport. Pan was an exhibitor as a start-up in the Bootstrap Alley section of the event.
“We were extremely impressed by Jeff's background as both a hotelier and a software engineer with deep knowledge of hotel API architecture. We look forward to utilising his team's software to provide an added value to our hotel partners,” he said.
