The IXATA Group Inc., Friday announced it had launched GetPaidToStay.Com.
This is an affiliate program for the IXATA Group, and is the first business venture from its Virtual Purchasing Solutions Division. The new business venture is expected to be fully ready for market in Spring 2001 and will combine discounted hotel room rates from around the world, a dynamic on-line booking engine, cash/credit incentives for individuals, small companies, and groups that the company has identified as both underserved and price conscious.
GetPaidToStay.Com is built upon six years of marketing intelligence and is designed to fill a niche in the current e-commerce travel market, catering to price conscious consumers. Unlike existing consumer incentive programs such as frequent stay or frequent flyer programs that historically rebate less than 1% of the total dollars spent by the travel consumer for conversion into goods and services only, GetPaidToStay will provide the consumer the ability to initially get cash back from their confirmed hotel/motel stays at rates exceeding the historical rebate.
``Think of it for the consumer as getting paid to sleep,`` remarked Robert Steiner, president of IXATA`s Virtual Purchasing Solutions division. ``The Internet has provided a great breeding ground for changing the paradigm of how to put heads in beds. I am excited to embark on a new revenue producing venture drawing from our experience in providing e-commerce solutions for the hospitality industry.``
Steiner added, ``We have designed a service that will provide financial incentives to individuals and the historically overlooked small to mid-size companies. We would like for everyone to reap the financial benefits enjoyed by large corporations. In addition, we believe that some of the larger corporations will use our service and preferred hotel rates to augment their own lodging programs.``
The GetPaidToStay.Com effort comes just one week after NextGen Capital L.L.C., a venture capital group based in Fairfax, Va., made a capital infusion into the company.
``The IXATA Group Inc. is a great company that has needed capital to build on its success with RFP Express, and take advantage of the underlying development program and talent that brought that product to market,`` commented Mike Wynne, chairman and chief executive officer of IXATA, and a NextGen member. ``Separating the businesses will allow us to build upon our own internal knowledge base and extract hidden value as a result. GetPaidToStay.Com is our first effort to be announced publicly as we launch the business venture and enter the data collection phase of this program. I see it growing into its own business model as it matures.``
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