Six to twelve weeks · roughly 20% pass rate
The vetting rubric between a vendor submission and a shortlist entry.
Every module on the Hotelminder shortlist has walked through the same four-step vetting process. Roughly one submission in five reaches the store. Here is what happens in each step, what the rubric is, and what the honest failure modes look like.
Hotelminder receives vendor submissions weekly. Some are hospitality-native tools with a clear boutique thesis; some are enterprise products looking for a smaller market; a few are shrink-wrap SaaS products where the founder read one Booking.com blog post and decided hotels needed their tool. Regardless of origin, every submission runs through the same four steps below, in order, without shortcuts.
Scoping call
A Hotelminder advisor and the vendor spend 90 minutes on operational fit. Which boutique size class the module actually serves; which SiteMinder tier is required; which country's fiscal edge cases are supported; what the module explicitly refuses to do. About one submission in three is declined here on principle — typically because the vendor cannot articulate a boutique thesis distinct from their enterprise pitch.
Two-hotel pilot
If the scoping call passes, the module runs on two paying boutique properties — never chain hotels, never friends-and-family accounts — for a minimum of two booking cycles (eight to twelve weeks depending on season). We track guest complaints, front-desk time cost and any silent data loss against a written baseline captured before the pilot began.
Advisory review
The three-person advisory team reads the pilot report against a written rubric (below). Approvals are unanimous or the module goes back to the vendor with specific changes. About one pilot in three is rejected at this stage, usually because the pilot revealed a failure mode the vendor had not disclosed at scoping.
Shortlist entry
The module enters the store with a written Hotelminder advisory note, the two-hotel pilot data (published), and a Hotelminder-authored implementation guide. Rejected modules receive a specific written rejection with the concrete concerns — not a vague "no thanks". Some vendors address the concerns and re-apply; some succeed on the second attempt.
The written rubric — four criteria, all four must pass
1. Measurable revenue lift or hour saving
Vague ROI claims are not accepted. The pilot must produce a measurable, defensible number: a percentage RevPAR improvement, minutes-per-day saved by a specific team member, cancellations avoided per week. If the vendor cannot help design the measurement before the pilot begins, the module is unlikely to survive the pilot.
2. Operational safety
Nothing may auto-publish to a guest-facing surface without human confirmation. Nothing may irreversibly overwrite a SiteMinder record without an audit trail. Nothing may send an email or WhatsApp to a guest without an explicit consent flag. This is a non-negotiable line and about one pilot in six fails on it alone.
3. Honest failure modes
Every module has failure modes. The vetting rubric requires the vendor to document them in advance, in writing, and to make them visible in the Hotelminder advisory note. A module that pretends it does not fail cannot be shortlisted. A module that ships with a documented "does not work if you have more than four rate plans on the same room" caveat can — because a boutique property can decide whether that caveat matters.
4. Support desk answering within one business day, in English and French
The Hotelminder shortlist is European boutique-first. Support that only answers in English on US East Coast hours does not fit. During the pilot we open two dummy support tickets on a Friday afternoon and measure the response. Modules whose support desk cannot answer a Friday-3pm question by Monday-noon in both English and French do not pass.
What the vendor sees
The vetting timeline is six to twelve weeks depending on season and pilot-property availability. Vendors receive a written weekly update. If a module fails at any of the four steps, the vendor receives a specific rejection letter within two working days — not a form email, and not silence. Re-applications are permitted after twelve months and after the vendor has addressed the specific concerns raised.
What the boutique property sees
Every module in the store carries three things from the vetting process: the written advisory note (why this module, for what size property, with which caveats), the anonymised pilot data (aggregate metric changes over the pilot window), and the implementation guide (step-by-step install with the SiteMinder-side settings called out). All three are drafted by the advisory team, not the vendor.
Curious whether a specific module would survive our rubric?
The advisor line is open to General Managers who are already using a SiteMinder add-on we have not shortlisted, and want an honest read on it. No judgement, no upsell — sometimes the answer is "keep what you have".