Updated at 5.30pm
BOOKING YOUR FAVOURITE restaurant in Dublin could be about to get a bit easier.
US-based online restaurant reservation company OpenTable is making a push into the capital as part of its international expansion plans.
While about 30 restaurants in Ireland were already using the service, it was previously routing all local bookings through its existing UK site and app.
OpenTable International managing director Mike Xenakis told TheJournal.ie the company “hadn’t really invested in Ireland” until now.
The restaurants that appear on the site today reflect years of being in the UK and the close proximity, restaurants that have reached out to us,” he said.
The company is taking a “phased approach” to the market, launching a dedicated site for the territory with a team of three local staff trying to recruit more restaurants in Dublin. Another 20 outlets had signed up over the past month, Xenakis said.
Venues include chef Dylan McGrath’s Fade St Social and Rustic Stone, Brasserie Sixty6 and The Saddle Room at the Shelbourne Hotel.
How it works
OpenTable combines the ability for customers to book restaurant tables online with TripAdvisor-style reviews and ratings.
It also provides the back-end booking systems to businesses using the site, which means diners get real-time access to a restaurant’s reservation book.
In return, restaurants pay a monthly subscription fee of €149 – although its basic, web-based reservation system is free. All outlets are also charged €1.50 per diner the company delivers to restaurants.
Xenakis said OpenTable’s biggest competitor globally remained “the telephone and a pen and paper” and its expansion in Dublin would depend on it signing up more restaurants to then attract a larger customer base.
That second piece is critically important because quite frankly the economics of our business is about being able to parade a diner network,” he said.
The San Francisco-headquartered company currently has more than 32,000 restaurants signed up worldwide and seats over 17 million diners each month.
It was founded in 1998 and in 2009 the firm was launched on the stock market, however in 2014 it was taken over by The Price Group, which owns travel sites Booking.com and Agoda, and Rentalcars.com, for $2.6 billion (€2.34 billion today).
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