As a media first, we can announce that today marks the "soft launch" of www.readyrooms.com with an official launch to follow soon.
The Ready Rooms brand was initially launched as the online accommodation aggregator on qantas.com. In recent years, the brand dropped from public view and was intergrated as the "hotels" option on qantas.com and jetstar.com
The Jetset Travelworld Group (parent company for Qantas Holidays) has today launched a new accommodation booking website. The readyrooms brand will now make a reappearance into the consumer space as www.readyrooms.com.
This means that accommodation suppliers already allocating rooms with Qantas Holidays will now be distributed through an additional independent online website that specialises in reselling accommodation.
From a consumer point of view, the site looks very clean and usable. From a business perspective the new website would appear to be a simple and inspired venture that will broaden the opportunity to resell accommodation from the airline's existing database of suppliers.
Air New Zealand announced last year its "commitment to playing a role in the wider tourism industry" and it will be interesting to see comparable developments from our national airline that also has plans to clip the ticket beyond air travel.
In our opinion Air New Zealand has been somewhat guzumpt by today's announcement. Its Tourism Exchange product that has yet to fly is too cumbersome and too late.
