Duetto to Double Space
As hotel revenue strategist Duetto CEO Patrick Bosworth preps to take the hotel world by storm, he first needs to double his HQ. He says the company will outgrow its digs at 16 Maiden Ln in six months, even though the lease expires next March. (Til then, prepare for human contact.)
The company has been doubling in size every four months, he tells us, as it hires across the US and globe. Right now, its 4,000 SF office fits 18, so he's looking for 10k SF accessible to or near the Montgomery BART, since many of the employees are trickling in from the Peninsula and East Bay. Duetto has a footprint in 17 countries, so he also wants to expand that (instead of running everything out of the Pacific time zone). He's got another office in Vegas and is in the process of opening up sales and support offices in Singapore and London or Berlin. He's already a world traveler, at his home base in S.F. (below) only one to two days per week, and on the road the rest of the time. (He probably has good hotel restaurant suggestions.) Next stop: NYC.
Patrick and partner Marco Benvenuti come from the hotel industry in Sin City (the Wynn and Caesars brands, respectively). The Duetto revenue management system already has some top VCs on board. Instead of targeting the Marriotts and Hiltons, he wants to make money for REITs and real estate owners of hotel assets (major investors from Starwood Capital and Interstate Hotels are stakeholders) by staying on the cutting edge of what's happening in online distribution. Over 100 hotel companies are currently using the Duetto software, with six in the Bay Area. (A longtime partner is Stanford Park Hotel, above.) He recently signed a few in the city he can't reveal yet, with more coming in wine country.
Patrick (with some of his staff... and a horse) is encouraging customers to view Google as a booking channel. Google's major investment in Room 77 means it's ramping up its metasearch hotel capabilities; one day Google Glass wearers will be able to stand in Time Square, he says, and look around to see what hotels have rooms available and at what price. Working with Steve Wynn was a great training ground in learning what was possible with profit-based optimization and other ways a hotel can make money, he says.
