The Right Place, a non-profit economic development organization serving Western Michigan, recently joined forces with The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and the city of Wyoming, Mich., to facilitate an expansion of The Priceline Group’s operations in Wyoming. The expansion will add 562 local jobs to the Western Michigan market.
The Priceline Group provides global online hotel reservations, working with more than 190,000 participating hotels across the globe. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in more than 110 countries in Europe, North America, South America the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa.
The company established a North American customer service center in Wyoming in 2008. At that time, $7.7 million was invested to refurbish a former Siemens Dematic facility at 4147 Eastern Ave. This project created 424 jobs during a five-year period.
Three years later, the service center now houses 386 employees with an additional 253 temporary employees, many of whom are in Priceline’s temp-to-hire program. With increasing business and a need to establish a training center in the Americas, Priceline considered locations in the U.S. western time zone and South America.
Priceline will benefit from property tax abatements from the city of Wyoming and a larger incentive package, incentives that encouraged it to expand its facility in West Michigan. Both the existing and the 562 additional jobs include health benefits, shift and second-language premiums, and annual bonuses for employees.
“It is a credit to the multi-lingual skills and work ethic of West Michigan’s workforce that Priceline is increasing its investment in our region,” said Susan Jackson, Right Place vice president of business development. “Jobs with health benefits and incentives such as those offered by priceline are at a premium, and without the skill set available here, and without the collaboration of the MEDC and the city of Wyoming, this success would not have been possible.”
