2011. While Will and Kate were having a royal wedding, Oprah was taking a final bow on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl, and Beyonce announced her first pregnancy live at the VMAs, a technology company called UrVenue was born.
2021 marks the 10 year anniversary for UrVenue. Developed first by Cedric Ancellin, UrVenue was built to spark new life into hospitality by empowering venues with innovative booking and operations technology. Our side-by-side partnerships with the largest Las Vegas hotels and resorts helped to launch and grow the ever-evolving UrVenue platform.
Since UrVenue’s first foray into powering booking and commerce solutions for nightclubs and dayclubs, we’ve expanded to resort pools, lounges, sportsbooks, conference rooms, recreation and restaurants all with the goal of creating a Unified Booking Experience for guests. Our focus has expanded to the entire resort to help make experience-based inventory and resort real-estate easy for customers to book all within one, single shopping cart.
Why? Our Integrated Resorts & Amenities Insights 2021 Study confirmed something we’ve noticed for a while now: modern, upmarket travelers prefer to book directly with hotels and resorts and they respond with overwhelming positivity to opportunities for bundling experiences and reservations in a single online interaction.
To achieve this, behind the scenes the UrVenue team continued to advance new technology that supports integrated resorts by introducing innovations such as:
- Itinerary Building
- Contactless Payment Solutions
- OpenTable Integrations
- Advanced QR-based POS Integration
- Live Seating & Table Management
- Online Bookings/Ticketing
- 3D Maps
- Alexa & Chatbot AI
- Kiosks
- Mobile Menus
UrVenue Team Growth and Partnerships
In the last year alone our team has more than doubled with strategic hiring initiatives including the appointment of Deron Pearson as Chief Executive Officer as well as bringing on industry experts like Tracee Nalwak as the Chief Marketing and Product Officer, Jonathan Taylor as Vice President of Business Development, Kerry Osborne as Senior Enterprise Relationship Manager, and Bill Sklar as Senior Director of IT and Engineering.
This strategic growth has helped pave a path to new partnerships that were formed this year with Olea Kiosks, Satisfi Labs and OpenTable.
In addition to clubs, attractions, pools, recreation and other experiences, guests can now reserve restaurants through our OpenTable partnership by using a central, seamless booking experience with one integrated shopping cart. For resorts and venues, this solution offers new opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, packaging and bundling experiences.
Embedded in the Hospitality Industry
UrVenue has always prioritized real life experience and real-world testing – and it shows. We moved into a new office in Las Vegas this year. We are right next door to some of the most iconic resorts and global destinations for entertainment, which is an important aspect to our hands-on approach to customer success and product evolution.
We’ve worked on location with many clients, day in and day out, to understand their needs and develop the solutions that solve their unique problems. We’re thankful to all our customers and partners for working together with us to be an innovative force driving hospitality technology into the future.
“One of the most powerful tools we have through UrVenue is our ability to control the pricing of our inventory and yield it appropriately, based on how much we’re selling, We can take a strategic look at cabana rentals based on metrics, which allows us to set the right prices to maximize our revenue opportunities.”
– Mike Pena, Director of Pool Operations at Circa Resort & Casino in Las Vegas
Some of those clients highlighted this year include:
Over the past 10 years we have been proud to serve some of the most notable resort and entertainment companies in the world.
Looking Ahead
While we are celebrating a decade’s worth of progress, we feel like our true work has only just begun. We push ourselves every single day to innovate and provide best-in-class solutions for our customers worldwide. We listen to their problems, are challenged by their ideas, and engage in deep operational partnerships to develop and provide industry-changing technology that will power hospitality commerce and elevate the guest experience. We are excited to march onward in this journey to build the next generation of hospitality tech, and look forward to working closely with everyone who wishes to join us in collaboration
We thank our partners, investors, and our valuable team members for your support and partnership over the past 10 years. None of this would be possible without you.
Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. Here’s to the next decade!
