Sojern, the leading travel marketing platform, today (July 11th, 2023) announced the acquisition of VenueLytics, the hospitality industry’s most integrated guest experience platform serving independent hotels, resorts, chains, and casinos. Sojern will incorporate VenueLytics’ capabilities to extend the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform.

Sojern has long been a direct bookings driver for hotels—providing comprehensive digital advertising solutions that help travel marketers find, attract, and convert new travellers, re-activate existing guests to build loyalty and maximise net revenue per available room (RevPAR). This acquisition expands Sojern’s Travel Marketing Platform to engage across the entire guest journey with VenueLytics' cutting-edge technology that includes artificial intelligence (AI)-powered virtual concierge, real-time guest feedback and digital reputation management tools, and a guest marketing suite for email and text promotions. VenueLytics’ solutions help marketing, operations, and front-desk teams better serve their guests with fewer resources required, drive incremental revenue, and maximise profit. With these additional features, Sojern can now help marketers find, attract, convert, and engage travellers throughout their journey.

"This is an exciting step forward for our customers as we can empower hoteliers beyond advertising alone, expanding our offerings to be a true end-to-end marketing platform," said Mark Rabe, CEO of Sojern. "We are dedicated to providing the travel industry with innovative solutions that leverage data, AI, and technology to drive results. VenueLytics' expertise in analysing, unifying, and activating data from various hotel management and marketing systems will allow Sojern to deepen our relationships in hospitality. This addition helps us to advance toward becoming the number one travel marketing platform.” 

One of VenueLytic's key customers is Grupo Posadas, the largest hotel company in Mexico with over 180 resorts and hotels. Posadas director of quality, standards and innovation, Leslie Gomez, commented, “By using VenueLytics AI Concierge throughout the guest journey, Posadas has increased ancillary revenue with more than 53,000 requests over the last nine months. Our guests' satisfaction improved more than 19 percentage points (pp) in NPS (Net Promoter Score) from the guests who had contact with our digital concierge experience.”

By extending its platform with VenueLytics, Sojern can now support hotel marketers with an all-in-one platform that drives guests directly to a property, enables upselling mid-stay, remarketing post-stay, and builds long-term loyalty. In addition to the multichannel offerings of Sojern, VenueLytics provides the ability to engage customers in an expanded multichannel network that includes SMS, Email, WiFi, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, ChatBot, Alexa, Google Home, and other social media and third-party apps. This allows Sojern to expand into generative AI with cutting-edge tools to drive and optimise booking value for hotels.

VenueLytics co-founder and CEO Baskar Manivannan commented, “We have partnered with Sojern for more than a year, and joining forces will strengthen our customer base and reputation while enabling us to offer the hospitality and travel industry a wider and timely range of solutions. With AI, data analytics, and personalised multichannel guest engagement at the backbone of what we do, we have a shared vision to empower hotels around the world to drive profitability, and truly elevate guest experience and satisfaction.”

Last month, Sojern announced the latest version of its Sojern Travel Marketing Platform with enhanced AI-powered audiences. This acquisition further demonstrates the company’s rigour and success at integrating new technology and scaling it globally. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sojern has reported previously that it is profitable, has driven more than USD$10bn (£7.7bn) in global travel bookings, and serves over 10,000 customers annually around the world leveraging its long-standing AI capabilities. 

The acquisition will deepen Sojern’s hotel expertise in North America where VenueLytics has been focused. VenueLytics can now support the global hospitality industry as an extension of the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform. To learn more about how this acquisition can benefit your travel marketing campaigns, please visit Sojern’s website.