After more than three decades of local ownership, Navis, a hospitality direct-booking platform, has been acquired by Revinate, a San Francisco-based competitor.

That’s what happens in business when two online hospitality firms grow and compete for many of the same independent hotel chains.

It’s a new chapter in the evolution of the business that began in 1987 under the name Buehner-Fry Inc. as a long-distance provider for vacation rentals.

“If feels like Navis has completed a full life cycle of a business on its way to the next chapter under the umbrella of a new organization,” said Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon.

The acquisition of the two privately held companies was for an undisclosed sum and was funded by Revinate’s current investor, Serent Capital. The merger keeps Bend on the hospitality booking platform map, as Revinate plans to keep its operations here.

These kinds of acquisitions used to be rare in Central Oregon, Lee said. In the past two years, there have been a few businesses in Central Oregon that were acquired by others.

“This speaks to several changing dynamics,” Lee said. “The sheer volume of startups today in our regions, their success in gaining traction in the marketplace and the appetite of acquiring firms to buy competing or complementary businesses rather than attempting to replicate them.”

The merger

It began with a conversation about three years ago, said Kyle Buehner, Navis CEO. Then the pandemic hit, the travel and hospitality market nearly dried up, but now is rebounding.

Navis will be renamed Revinate under the merger agreement, and the 110 employees in Bend will remain, as will the offices. It will become part of Revinate’s global company with offices in Amsterdam and Singapore.

The two companies’ clients include more than 8,500 independent hotels and vacation rentals accessing a direct booking platform. Combined, the company not only makes the booking but also provides guest data allowing for targeted direct marketing.

Through the merger, hotel operators will be able to achieve scalable direct revenue from the combined businesses. Revinate’s platform enables direct booking rather than relying on third-party bookings, like Expedia or Booking.com, said Marc Heyneker, Revinate CEO.

Revinate takes the booking and direct markets other services to the guests through Revinate’s platform that gathers collects travel data and preferences to improve the guest experience, Heyneker said.

Building efficiencies

Combining the two company’s software platforms allows independent hotels to take the direct bookings and upsell guests through direct marketing strategies, Heyneker said.

“Both Revinate and Navis have become integral to the execution and success of our overall marketing strategy and central reservations department,” Renee Murrieta, director of marketing at Noble House Hotels & Resorts, said in an email. “The fusion of the two platforms and teams will surely lead to even greater efficiencies and innovations that provide us, and other customers, a competitive edge.

“We’re all excited to see what comes next.”

The two companies have grown up together, Heyneker said. Navis and Revinate offer complementary capabilities, he said,

“We’re super excited,” Heyneker said. “Both companies specialize in individual independently owned hotels, three- or four-star resorts, high-end properties where guest services are critical. Our sweet spot is the smaller hotel chains.

“Our cultures and services are complementary.”

Navis history

Navis started as a long-distance call management firm for vacation rentals, said Buehner. Cell phone technology killed that business model, Buehner said, but his dad was undaunted and became a reservation center.

“We were scrappy and reinvented ourselves,” Buehner said.

The company tried being a reservation call center handling after -hours reservations and in 2004 became a marketing firm for vacation rentals and small, independent hotels and resorts. For a period of time, the company acquired other firms, such as the Arizona-based LMG Data Mining company that gave hotels and resorts information about guest purchasing habits on previous stays, according to The Bulletin archives.

That acquisition nearly doubled the number of hotel customers Navis had. And now with the merger, the two companies that had served many of the same customers, will be a strong player in the marketplace, Buehner said.

Going forward, the combination of these two companies creates a foundation for the ultimate direct booking experience for guests, Heyneker said.

“That’s something hotels have needed for long time. It’s a big deal,” Heyneker said. “No single company was able to do this alone.”

“Everything we do is about the guest data platform. We help hotels to know who their most valuable customers are, and that’s transformational information for their business. They can be more profitable.”