The history of genkan began nearly 20 years ago when the founder, Glenn Smith, began to focus his attention to the world of on-line marketing.

In the years following he became a recognised leading pioneer and visionary in internet search engine technologies including website optimisation, e-mail marketing and before 2000 started Response Mechanix as one of the first SEO companies in Australia.

Response Mechanix developed and built one of the very first e-mail marketing engines named TargetMailer. Eventually Glenn realised that e-mail marketing would soon become over run by free services and that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was the key to online marketing success.

Early in 2000 Glenn invested in property at the Australian ski resort of Thredbo and started his own business called Discover Thredbo.

Back then Discover Thredbo was a rather amateurish property management business operating from a small home office. The knowledge, tools and the domination of the search engines from Response Mechanix meant that at one stage Discover Thredbo had 9 of the top 10 search results on Google and every other search engine. Because of the success in marketing his own properties he was asked by other owners to manage their properties and has built a large portfolio of rentals which today he manages at www.thredbo.com .

As Discover Thredbo began to grow so did the needs and requirements of the business. It was clear that with wireless internet and the accessibility of the internet to greater numbers that Online Bookings and Reservations would soon become a reality. With the launch of a software named Yesbookit in 1994 Discover Thredbo became one of the original users however Discover Thredbo quickly outgrew that software. The main issues were that Yesbookit required separate accounting software, it had no marketing and was nothing other than a reservations software which had very little vision for the future in a rapidly developing industry. Glenn believed that Holiday Rental Property Management at Discover Thredbo was a Marketing Business first and foremost, it was then and still is today.

The dream of Genkan began to take place…

The overall goal in designing Genkan was to automate the entire process with the requirement for minimal staffing. The ability to operate a “virtual” office but also to develop a complete, “All In One” solution, from the nurturing of new clients to the encouragement of those clients back year and year again and including every part of the process in between. At this stage there was no intention for a commercial product and it was called internally a PMS long before there was any such product available.

In October 2009 Discover Thredbo began to use genkan. It was to our knowledge the first property reservations software to include trust accounting and 3 months later in January 2010 Discover Stradbroke, a new start up property management company on Stradbroke Island Queensland became the first commercial user. In November 2010 the product was launched.

In the years since, genkan has grown and developed with some very significant milestones of achievement.

In January 2014 the company established Genkan Creative, an agency totally focussed in the delivery of marketing web services for the travel accommodation sector.

genkan milestones

2010

• Integrated Trust Accounting
• Specials Module
• Booking extras

2011

• Booking Overview
• Job Log and Maintenace
• Property Sales

2012

• Email Marketing Reporting
• Inventory Management
• Inspection Module
• Survey Monster
• Permanent rentals

2013

• genkan Shop
• genkan Hotel
• genkan APP launched
• genkan Multi lingual
• First Customer in Thailand
• First Customer in the UK
• First Customer in Portugal
• European Office opens

2014

• Genkan Creative Agency opens
• First Customer in Italy
• 50+ Customers Worldwide
• The Development of genkan 2 begins…

2015

• 70 clients worldwide
• Homeway integration
• Stayz Integration
• Booking.com integration
• Genkan Loyalty

2016

• 80 clients worldwide
• AirBnb integration with Ical
• Statistics and more statistics
• Genkan Big Data
• g-Shop
• Record bookings per property in Thredbo business
• Genkan for Owner Managers

2017

• Genkan Direct Connect
• AirBnb API – first in Australasia
• Booking.com
• TripAdvisor API

2018

• Expedia API
• HomeAway Stayz API

2019

• Rezkey
• Agoda
• CTrip

genkan – what about our name?

It could be said that genkan gets its name from the 12th century Mongolian leader Genghis Khan who was seen in his day amongst many things as an innovator in information processing. It was his obsession with acquiring and processing information that he used to open new doors and to develop new methods. An example of this is how he formed a communication `network` consisting of concentric rings spaced a day’s horseback ride apart centred about his headquarters; messengers maintained a constant flow of information along radial lines connecting the rings. This structure was emulated by Napoleon and in some respects is mimicked by modern database systems.

genkan  玄関 is also the Japanese word for the place just inside a traditional Japanese house where you would leave your shoes before you open the door to the main house.

genkan too will open many doors, to find out how, call our sales team for a unique demonstration that will change your business forever.

genkan headquarters and R&D are located in Brisbane Australia with other offices in the United Kingdom and Thailand