Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Quandoo

OpenTable and Quandoo Partner for Restaurant Reservations

Furthering its seeming aim to reach across the whole of the restaurant business, OpenTable announced this week a partnership with Berlin, Germany-based restaurant reservations platform Quandoo.

The integration of the two systems will allow users to see more choices when it comes to picking a restaurant. Quandoo users can now reserve tables at restaurants on the OpenTable platform, and the reverse will be true in the near future.

The deal also gives OpenTable more visibility in overseas markets, as Quandoo is available in 12 different countries across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the press release, the initial integration will include over 10,000 restaurants across OpenTable and Quandoo, increasing OpenTable’s available restaurants to 56,000 and Quandoo’s to 23,000. More restaurants will be added to the integrated platform in the UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, and Singapore in the coming months.

“This partnership will make each site more comprehensive for diners and restaurant partners will benefit from increased discoverability by being available on both platforms,” OpenTable’s Chief Operating Officer, Andrea Johnston, said in a statement.

And while OpenTable may be focused on restaurant reservations with this deal, the company has of late made many moves suggesting it wants to be much, much more than just a platform for booking a table. Last month, OpenTable announced a partnership with some third-party delivery companies, including Grubhub and Uber Eats, which gives users the option to pick (but not pay for) delivery from within the OpenTable app. The company also recently partnered with restaurant-management platform Upserve to share data on customers’ dining preferences (e.g., food allergies) with servers in real time.

OpenTable faces competition most directly from Resy, a restaurant reservation system that was just officially acquired by American Express. Resy also unveiled a table inventory management system and a new loyalty program in 2018.

Increasing both restaurant choices and exposure to worldwide markets through the Quandoo partnership is no doubt a move to help OpenTable boost its visibility with more potential customers. In doing so, it’s another way to stay relevant while the company furthers its aim of becoming a one-stop-shop for an increasingly competitive restaurant biz.

Instagram’s Getting Into Restaurant Reservations With a New Partnership

Instagram just announced it will enable in-app restaurant reservations thanks to a new partnership with reservation platform Quandoo. That means you can now search for a restaurant and book it just by hitting a button and without ever leaving the Instagram environment.

Quandoo is currently in 12 different countries across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Users can search 17,000-plus restaurants on the Quandoo website or mobile app, and quickly book a table reservation.

But it’s the restaurants themselves that stand to reap a lot of benefit from using a service like Quandoo, which can function as a reservations-management system and marketing services platform rolled into one. Those marketing services include everything from custom websites that integrate with the Quandoo reservations platform to newsletter placement to social media strategies. Restaurants can choose from different pay-per-month plans that range in price and the number of services. Ultimately, Quandoo helps restaurants handle more bookings per table and therefore generate more revenue.

The deal means restaurants have an even larger potential audience and/or customer base, as well as a means to make businesses more searchable and shareable. Facebook may still be the top social network, but Instagram, alongside WhatsApp, is inching closer (Facebook owns both companies). Plus, Instagram’s been dabbling in the restaurant biz a few years now, getting involved with everything from pay-by-picture concepts, where users get a meal in exchange for uploading and tagging a photo, to helping change cocktail culture by demystifying the concept of mixology.

Quandoo is not available in the U.S., but similar strategies are nonetheless at work—Instagram already has partnerships with Grubhub, Resy, and OpenTable.

Given that food has always been a popular topic to document on Instagram, it makes sense the company is playing an increasingly bigger role in the restaurant industry and will keep doing so in the future, for reservations or otherwise.