Room Key is the successor of the website Travelweb. Roomkey’s history traces to 2010 with talks between hoteliers. In 2011, Room Key acquired hotelicopter, a Charlottesville, VA-based firm, and its technology platform, which provided the technology foundation for Roomkey.com. Room Key launched its beta site and added Best Western International as its first commercial partner in January 2012. In March 2012, Room Key launched international websites in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Room Key added Preferred Hotel Group as a commercial partner in March 2012 and Worldhotels in April 2012. Room Key exited beta and fully launched in May 2012. Best Western joined Roomkey a few days after it launched. In September 2012, Room Key added La Quinta Inns & Suites, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels and Leading Hotels of the World as commercial partners. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group was added as a commercial partner in November 2012. In September 2014, Davis stepped down as CEO of Room Key. Steve Sickel was named interim CEO. In 2015, Accor CEO Sebastian Bazin mimicked a "pschitt" noise to describe Room Key. In 2016, David Kong, CEO of Best Western, called Roomkey a "big disappointment". On June 8, 2020, the company announced via email and social media that it would no longer be providing hotel search functionality and all user data would be deleted, effective immediately. The message read, in part: "At Roomkey, our goal has always been honesty. The truth is that Roomkey is in the process of redefining our business operations. Starting June 8, Roomkey.com will no longer provide hotel search services." It was unclear at the time if the company was ceasing all operations permanently or planning to relaunch with a new product in the future.
Operations
Roomkey is owned by its founding partners: Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, and Wyndham Worldwide. Along with its founding partners’ properties, Roomkey’s website includes properties from commercial partners. Commercial partners do not have an ownership stake in Roomkey. Roomkey also has partnerships with several central reservation systems including Sabre SynXis, Trust and TravelClick, which enable the listing of thousands of additional hotels on Roomkey’s website. When a Roomkey user attempts to book a room with any of Roomkey’s founding or commercial partners, the customer is directed to the partner’s site and books a room directly with the hotel.
