RacketRooms.com Makes Booking Accommodation Easier for GLTA Players

For every GLTA player travelling from one tournament to the next one, finding and booking an accommodation can be a little confusing, especially if one doesn’t have any idea of the destination. RacketRooms.com, a new, dedicated accommodation booking portal for GLTA players is aiming to put an end to all this confusion.

We interviewed Brendan Crawford, our fellow GLTA tennis enthusiast and the creator of the new portal, to get a better idea about all the benefits of RacketRooms.

Tell us about RacketRooms.com, What is it and who is it for?

RacketRooms.com is a dedicated accommodation booking portal for GLTA players based around the GLTA World Tour Calendar. As an organisation we book thousands of hotel and apartment room nights around the world each year. So, I thought, why shouldn’t we harness that buying power to benefit our players, tournament directors and the GLTA. We have partnered with HotelPlanner, who link to ALL major global online travel agencies e.g. booking.com and wholesale bed banks worldwide. We take a share of commission on hotel bookings, and after operating costs, the balance will be reinvested in tournaments via sponsorship agreements with tournament directors. We’re sponsoring the Gran Canaria Paradise Cup later this month – as an example of how I believe this can work. Right now, as an organisation we don’t see any benefit from our global accommodation spend, booking.com/airbnb are the big winners here.

What inspired you to launch Racket Rooms? Is there a story behind it that you would like to share?

Yes, there is. I was on a train to Dublin, Ireland in April with my husband (we’re both GLTA players) we were reflecting on our tournament participation over the last few years. My background is in ecommerce with hotels, travel websites including Booking.com parent, Travelocity/Lastminute.com, so I had a lightbulb moment. I’m largely early retired, though I love a project and saw this as an opportunity to give back to an organisation that has become a big part of my life, so I thought why don’t I use my skills, create a dedicated site based around the GLTA tournaments, harness our collective buying power to get the best deals, secure better inclusions, like breakfast, take some pain away from tournament directors and bring us closer together as players…..Play Together and Stay Together. Financially, I thought, if we can find the right partner to work with, we can generate a share of the commission to reinvest to help tournament directors and enhance the player experience. That’s how RacketRooms.com was born.

Could you describe the vision of Racket Rooms in one sentence?

Very simply, the vision behind RacketRooms.com is to harness our buying power to reinvest and enhance the tournament experience for GLTA players and to help tournament directors, who do extraordinary work for our organisation.

What are the main pain points with customers and how are you solving them?

The booking platform itself works very well, we’ve taken some pain out of the planning process by incorporating the GLTA World Tour Calendar, prepopulating tournament dates, which you can change of course and presenting results within closest distance to tournament venues. This is unique to GLTA. It’s early days and I think communication will be very important here, we aim to earn trust and always welcome feedback. Hopefully we will be helping tournament directors as accommodation can be a tricky area to manage.

Are there any insider tips you can pass on to the GLTA community?

We all do our homework and comparisons before we book accommodation. I’d encourage players to do initial research on racketrooms.com as search results are shown by distance from tournament venue and this can be very helpful for travel planning. The top hotels returned are pre-selected and recommended by us and highlighted in frames at the top of the search results. Accommodation offers will include all the same options as booking.com, pay now, pay later, free cancellation and so on.

How do you pick hotels for your portal?

We hand-pick the top properties returned based on location, price and suitability for all budgets. In addition, we offer exclusive rates at over 50k properties worldwide at the best available rates in the market. This is a work in progress as we engage with tournament directors and refine the processes.

How does a Tournament Director work with RacketRooms.com?

We want to work with TD’s and hopefully we can help them and relieve some of the organisational challenges. In addition to the main offers on RacketRooms.com, as an option for TD’s, we can undertake the direct contracting of hotels to get the best group rates with added value options e.g. breakfast included. We can then generate links for TD’s to include in the tournament software registration page. Depending on engagement and success we can then share booking volume information and direct sponsorship funds to these tournaments.

How do you see the portal in the future?

It’s small steps for the moment. The success of the portal will depend on player engagement. There are many options for players to book accommodation but I hope our players see value in this idea and choose to book with us. Over the next 12 months, very simply, I’d like to be sharing details of tournaments we’ve sponsored from RacketRooms.com revenue, bringing value and enhancing the player experience. If this works for us, great, if not, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

What are your 3 favourite destinations?

Very tough question. I guess my favourite is Australia. Slight bias, my husband is Aussie, from Perth WA and we tend to spend 2-3 months there every year. We love Spain, so Madrid, Gran Canaria and Barcelona are awesome and of course, Dublin, we’ll do that tournament next year. I love South Africa so maybe we need one tournament there.

How long have you been playing tennis and how long have you been competing at GLTA tournaments?

I picked up a racket for the first time in 2018 and my first tournament was in 2019. I remember my objective being to just get the ball over the net, I was terrible, I’ve had some lessons since 😊 . Learning a new sport later in life and then participating in tournaments is very stressful. The GLTA has opened a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view. I always come away from tournaments inspired to improve. I owe a debt of gratitude to the fabulous people at Loton Park Tennis Club in Perth, WA where I was inspired to play tennis, their generosity, encouragement, patience and sense of fun made such a difference. I’d really like to work with our marketing team to fund a program to help enable people like myself within our community to pick up a racket and join the GLTA. The success of RacketRooms.com will depend on earning the trust of our players. I look forward to engaging with TD’s and hopefully we can make RacketRooms.com work for everyone, Better Together.