Talya Bilişim, which is the market leader in Turkey with its hotel management software Elektra, is preparing for global competition.
Nilüfer Durukal, Managing Partner of Talya Bilişim, speaking to DÜNYA, said that compared to foreign competitors, they have a more flexible, adaptable, customizable product tailored to hotel needs and more competitive in terms of price, and they plan to grow through sales abroad in 2020, targeting the Balkans, Africa, and some Asian countries. Durukal also noted that Elektra includes a “smart software” feature that analyzes factors such as the occupancy rates of surrounding hotels and special periods like congresses, providing pricing increase-decrease recommendations to hotel management. Considering the rapidly increasing impact of online reservations, she added that they launched an affordable version integrated with such sites specifically for small hotels.
“We can also compete abroad”
Nilüfer Durukal, Managing Partner of Talya Bilişim operating in Akdeniz University Technopolis, stated that they work with 110 people, 80% of whom are technical staff, and that they are the market leader in Turkey with about 4,000 hotels. She said they have become dominant in the domestic market against two globally dominant software companies, with many hotels switching from other software to Elektra.
“From here, we boldly said that if we can compete with international software in Turkey, we can do it worldwide as well, and we opened a headquarters in London,” said Durukal, adding that except for Azerbaijan where they first started, they have installed Elektra in 80 hotels across 10 countries abroad in the last year. She said they recently opened their London office to expand international operations and aim to reach 200 hotels abroad by 2020.
Durukal highlighted that Elektra’s most important advantage over competitors, besides its affordable cost, is that it is web-based, not requiring network setup or server investment, and meets all needs. “We can solve the entire software requirement with a single program from A to Z. Usually, software comes as different programs for front office, accounting, restaurant, hotel internet, etc. With Elektra, we solve all that with one program. It can even be tailor-made. It has a flexible architecture. We have different models for different departments. This way, we can manage both a 10-room hotel and a 1,000-room hotel. For example, when the Tourism Tax comes, we adapt to it very quickly,” she said.
Affordable software integrated with online reservation for small hotels
Nilüfer Durukal announced that they have also developed a version of the Elektra hotel management system for small hotels, which will be sold for under 200 Euros. The main benefit, she said, will be opening the hotel to all sales channels online.
“We developed software that will only handle the hotel’s income, expenses, and reservation management but will open the hotel to all international sales channels. It’s integrated with agencies. It will greatly reduce hotel marketing expenses. Operations done by phone or fax are turned into software, managing reservations and increasing income. In channel management, you can manage online bookings from the front desk, agencies, and internet sales channels,” she said.
