Bookassist appoints new Austria and Germany region account manager

Mario Clemente has been appointed Account Manager at Bookassist's Austria office.

Mario joins Bookassist after working at Hurra.com, where he held the position of Key Account Manager for Spain and Portugal, managing the sales department and building a solid portfolio of key accounts in several industries as finance, ecommerce and travel sector. Specialized in Online Marketing Environment, he has been working in senior positions in the hotel and entertainment sector.

Mario holds a TEAT Degree in Tourism Management, and is based in Bookassist's Vienna office, giving support to Bookassist's Austrian and German hotel clients.

New Italian Sales & Support Team appointed at Bookassist

Alberto Recanatesi has been appointed Director of Sales for the Italian market at Bookassist.

Alberto joins Bookassist after 10 years at Venere.com, an Expedia Inc. company, where he held the position of Client Services Manager. Coordinating two teams, he built and managed a portfolio of over 30,000 properties. Alberto has also more recently been Product Manager for Hotels at Iperclub, responsible for acquisition processes and managing of the company’s affiliates and consolidators that provide additional content. He is based in Bookassist's Rome office.

Almudena Sampó is Bookassist's new Account Manager for the Italian market.

Almudena has a broad experience in the tourism industry, from sales positions in tour operators to GDS representation and other technology account management positions. Prior to Bookassist she worked for Pegasus Solutions as account manager for Utell Hotels in Italy. Before that Almudena held a sales position in the international contracting department in Bancotel, where she was in charge of introducing the Bancotel product in Italy. Almudena has spent the past year coordinating the expansion of Bookassist in Spain, in Cataluña and the Mediterranean area.

Paola Creazzo has been appointed Client Services Manager for Bookassist in Italy.

Paola has 9 years experience working for Venere.com and Expedia Inc. with direct responsibility for increasing reservations for client hotels and improving brand visibility. Paola was Market Manager for the main italian art cities of Florence,Venice and Naples and most famous Italian Islands of Capri, Ischia and Sardinia, as well as numerous other destinations such as Sorrento, Positano and the Chianti area. She managed more than 2500 hotel accounts advising on how best to optimise their online offering to increase reservations. She is based in Bookassist's Rome office.

See Bookassist's Corporate Site for Italy - bookassist.it

Bookassist appoints Account Manager for Catalunya

Bookassist has announced the appointment of Angel Lorenzo as Account Manager for the Catalunya region, to be based in Barcelona. Angel previously worked in Iberrail for more than ten years across several commercial departments. More recently, he has worked in the commercial sales department at Sercotel Hotels in Spain. He holds a TEAT tourism degree from the Centro Delicias in Madrid.

See Bookassist's Corporate Site for Spain and Portugal - bookassist.es

Bookassist reservations can now be transferred to TripIt

The Bookassist reservations system is now compatible with travel 2.0 service TripIt and is on the official Supported Vendors List. This new development means that hotel bookers can transfer their reservation details seamlessly to TripIt for the added convenience of being able to share their travel details.



TripIt is a fast growing Travel 2.0 / Web 2.0 service that organises your travel plans in a master travel itinerary online that's very easy to share with your family, friends and/or colleagues. If you are traveling for work, or traveling with friends, it is an ideal single access area to allow people to coordinate their travel plans.

Bookassist reservation confirmations from any of our hotels can be simply emailed to the TripIt system which will now automatically interpret them and load them to your travel profile, showing full booking details, hotel location details, arrival and departure dates, local weather and more.

The information is also iPhone compatible, meaning you can bring your travel itinerary with you no matter where you go, and be automatically warned of travel delays or alterations to your schedule.

Corporate Site nominated for Golden Spider Award

Bookassist's Corporate Website at bookassist.org has been shortlisted for a Golden Spider Award for 2009 in the Best Professional Services Website category. The awards take place on November 19th in Dublin.

Czech corporate website launched by Bookassist

Bookassist continues its expansion of services in central Europe with today's launch of the Bookassist.cz Czech language corporate website. Bookassist has operated successfully in the Czech Republic for a number of years but has recently increased its presence significantly through major investment in staffing and through the signing of Bookassist's partnership deal with Mediatel's Hotelguide.cz.


According to Jaroslav Tibitanzl, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Czech Republic, "the interest in Bookassist services is extremely strong and the presence of the corporate website in Czech, with full descriptions of all services, blogs and contact details will make it even easier for hotels to appreciate the advantages, economies and service levels that Bookassist brings compared to any other online strategy partner".

The Czech language site joins Bookassist's corporate sites localised for Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, France and Austria.

Online strategy and hotel software firm accelerates revenue growth and staffing levels despite economic situation

Dublin-headquartered online marketing and hotel software company Bookassist (bookassist.org) has announced the opening of two new offices in Europe amid continued growth in revenue year on year. The news comes as the company celebrates its tenth year in business this month.

Despite the gloomy news from the hospitality industry in Ireland and worldwide in the last year, the Irish-owned software company has continued its growth both in Ireland and abroad and now serves more than 2200 hotels, hotel groups and apartment providers worldwide. Recent acquisitions include Bewleys Hotels in Ireland and the UK, Quinn Hotel group in Ireland and the UK, Arcotel Hotels and Resorts in Austria and Germany, Roscioli Hotels in Rome and MSN Hotels in Italy.

While it has operated to date in Austria and Italy from its Dublin base, it has now opened its own sales and support operations in Vienna and Rome with the appointment of an initial three new staff in each office. The company currently employs 42 staff in its Dublin, Madrid, Prague and Paris offices.

"Bookassist has grown revenues yet again, to a projected €4.2M this year, a significant increase on 2008 despite the tough economic landscape. Online marketing services have seen revenue growth in excess of 200% alone this year. Today with the official opening of new operations in Vienna and in Rome, and the appointment of new staff in each of those offices, we are underlining our commitment to continue growing revenues at home and abroad. Our growth has been entirely funded by our own revenues and profits from 10 years of operations, with no external inputs and no debts - this is something we are particularly proud of and consider unique in our space", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO and founder.

Plans for a major expansion for 2010 are in place and will be announced before year's end. "We are very excited about our planning for 2010. We have a major new market announcement shortly that we have been planning for some time, and we expect to increase revenues by up to 25% in 2010 with a combination of new market penetration and increased revenue from our existing markets where we will continue to compete aggressively and yet again set the standards that define the marketplace", says O'Mahony.

Bookassist also recently achieved Payment Card Industry (PCI) security compliance representing the credit card industry's highest standards in online transaction security and data protection. "We have always invested strongly in research and innovation to ensure we can offer industry-beating service levels to our hotel clients, who in turn can be confident of what they offer online to their own customers", says O'Mahony.

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Ireland. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company in Ireland and in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Bookassist is TEN! Congratulations to us...

Bookassist celebrates its tenth anniversary this month - our first decade of innovation, strategy and revenue growth for our clients. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our over 2000 clients in 12 countries and our thousands of online customers daily for a fantastic decade. We promise the next decade will be even better!

Russian language release for Bookassist Booking Engine

Bookassist's Central Europe market has a growing business from Russia and hotel clients of the Bookassist offices in the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland are seeing an increasing demand for online services from Russian visitors. As a result, Bookassist has announced the Russian language and Russian Ruble version of its leading Booking Engine software.

The options will be available on demand to Bookassist hotel clients, along with 12 other standard languages currently available, to help hotels target this fast growing sector.

Bookassist at Northern Ireland Hospitality Exchange 2009

Come visit Bookassist's stand at the Hospitality Exchange 2009 at the Ramada Hotel Belfast and learn more about our Exclusive Offer for delegates and visitors.

Tuesday 13th October:
9am - 5pm (Trade Exhibition FREE)
Wednesday 14th October:
9am - 2pm (Trade Exhibtion FREE)

Hospitality Exchange has organised a host of seminars and guest speakers for this two-day event including Bill Kelly of Kelly's Hotel Rosslare, and a Chef Masterclass with Jason Atherton, Executive Chef at Gordon Ramsay's maze and maza Grill restaurants in London. For more information visit hospitalityexchange.co.uk.

For Further Information on Bookassist's presence or to schedule a consultation with a member of the Bookassist Team at Hospitality Exchange, please email: Sarah Collins, Paul Dooley or Kieran Fives or call: 00 353 (0) 1 676 2913

Bookassist systems achieve full PCI DSS Compliance

Bookassist servers and software technology have been confirmed by independent external audit to meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) Digitial Security Standards (DSS) compliance for the handling of credit card data as of September 2009. Bookassist is among the first in the online hotel booking industry to have met the exceptionally high standards for encryption, intrusion detection, security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures as laid down by the PCI Security Standards Council.

"Bookassist has long operated to PCI standards in terms of security, but we're particularly pleased that all the necessary requirements have now been assessed by independent external auditors and Bookassist servers, systems and software have passed all security tests and scans", said Karen Fives, Senior Systems Analyst and Director at Bookassist, coordinator of the compliance project. "Reaching these stringent requrements reflects Bookassist's approach in general to achieving the highest standards in everything we do".

Maintaining PCI DSS compliance is an ongoing task for the technology team at Bookassist and Bookassist's compliance is monitored by an independent outside party. Standards are continually raised by the PCI as new requirements are built into the developing DSS framework. Bookassist has been validated according to current standard PCI DSS v1.2.

The PCI DSS, a set of comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account data security, was developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. Inc. International, to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis. The motivation is to raise security levels online and to protect cardholder data to the highest possible security levels.

For more information see: PCI DSS Website

Seminars in Vienna highlight the importance of Social Media for online customer service

Bookassist seminars in Vienna have highlighted the ongoing importance of social media tools for the hospitality industry.


The seminars, which were held on Wednesday September 16th and Thursday September 17th in the ARCOTEL Kaiserwasser hotel in Vienna, covered the growing necessity of focussing on direct business through the hotel website, and the importance of good old-fashioned customer service as manifest in social media elements such as online customer reviews, being able to respond quickly on twitter, and other services.

The Wednesday event in the ARCOTEL Kaiserwasser hotel was attended by the Irish Ambassador to Austria, H.E. Frank Cogan. The seminars were given by Bookassist CEO Dr Des O'Mahony, Head of Business and Operations Yahya Fetchati and Head of Internet Marketing Mary Collins and discussions were chaired by regional Sales Manager Gerd Weingrill.


ARCOTEL Hotel Group staff at a break-out session at Thursday's seminar

Paul Dooley appointed Director of Client Services at Bookassist's Irish operation

Bookassist has announced the appointment of Paul Dooley to the role of Director of Client Services for the Irish operation.

Paul joins Bookassist from StayCity.com where he held the position of Group Director of Operations. Prior to this he spent over 15 years in a wide variety of senior hotel operational roles in Ireland and overseas, most recently with JurysDoyle Hotel Group in the Berkeley Court Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin.

Paul holds a BSc in Management from Trinity College Dublin and a HDip in Hotel & Catering Management from Dublin Institute of Technology, Cathal Brugha Street. Paul's role has overall responsibility for Internet Support Services, Account Management and Business Development in the Irish marketplace and is based in Bookassist's Dublin office.

Bookassist welcomes new team members in Dublin and Paris

Glenn Whitmore has a number of years web development experience specialising in website design and search engine optimisation. He has a BSc in computer science from Dublin City University. Prior to joining Bookassist, Glenn was a contract web developer designing websites for a wide range of companies. He is based in the Dublin office in the Site Builder team.

Owen Kelleghan has a broad experience of web technologies with a degree in Multimedia Computers from the Institute of Wales before moving on to employment as a web developer in the tourism industry for two years. Owen then moved on to One Productions where he was involved in every aspect of the web development process. He is based in Dublin and joins the Booking Engine and Web 2.0 Implementations team.

Pasquale Mellone holds a BA in Political Science and a MBA in Marketing & Communications. Prior to joining Bookassist, Pasquale worked as Web Content Manager for Blink Communications in Italy, with responsibility for Online Marketing and Search Engine Optimization areas. He is based in Dublin and works as Search Engine Marketer in the Traffic Builder team with responsibility for Irish and Italian accounts.

Céline Tcharbatchian comes from a Corporate Travel background and is currently also researching an MBA specialized in Travel Management. She has previously worked with the 17-hotel French chain Astotel. She is based in the Paris office in the Internet Support area.

New Site Builder Hotel Websites launched in August

Bookassist's Sitebuilder content management system (CMS) rapidly accelerates the development of websites for hotels and groups and gives full control to the hotel of all content in an easy-to-manage web-based interface. What's more, it fully and seamlessly integrates with Bookassist's Web 2.0 functionality giving automatically updated customer review pages, Google maps, e-vouchers, deep-linked special offers and of course the Booking Engine.

Hotels which have gone live this month with Site Builder websites are
- House Hotel, Galway City (www.thehousehotel.ie)
- Landmark Hotel, Carrick on Shannon (www.thelandmarkhotel.com)
- Osprey Hotel & Spa, Naas (www.osprey.ie)
- Hotel Le Dauphin, Paris (www.paris-hotel-dauphin.com)

Bookassist sponsors Irish team in Karma Enduro Charity Rally '09

In November 2009, Imogen Murphy and Caroline Malone are the Irish team taking part in a 14-day charity car rally through Southern India to raise money for two fantastic children’s charities, Unicef and Rainbow Trust.

The challenge is to complete a gruelling route of 2000km, driving 12 hours a day, over mountains, across hot arid plains, through dense forest trails and into hectic towns taking in some of the most demanding terrain in the region. The car of choice is a reconditioned Hindustan Ambassador based on the 1956 Mk 3 Morris Oxford - and it's got a Bookassist logo emblazoned on it!

Bookassist is proud to be a sponsor of the Irish team and wishes them all the best in their cross-continent challenge and their continued fundraising! See Karma Enduro 2009 and make your donation now for the deserving charities.

Bookassist and Hotelguide to power online bookings for over 1200 Czech hotels

Dublin-based technology firm BOOKASSIST (bookassist.org) and Prague-based communications company MEDIATEL, spol. s r.o. (mediatel.cz) have announced a comprehensive partnership agreement to bring Bookassist online booking technology to over 1200 hotels in Mediatel’s HotelGuide portfolio.

Mediatel’s HotelGuide is one of the largest travel guide publishers and travel portals (hotelguide.cz) for the Czech Republic featuring over 1200 directly contracted hotels and is one of Mediatel’s primary assets in the travel sector. Mediatel is an information and database specialist operating the Yellow Pages directories for all regions of the Czech Republic as well as providing advertising and direct marketing services and the distribution of telephone directories. The company was founded in 1991 and belongs to the European Directories S.A. publishing group (originally, the YBR Group), which brings together the directory book publishers in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Slovakia, Sweden and Gibraltar. Across all regions, the company interacts with some 7000 hotels in its operations.



“We are pleased to form this cooperation with Bookassist in order to bring the Bookassist booking platform to our hotel clients and our online HotelGuide.cz portal. This represents a real opportunity for HotelGuide to build on its position as a leading company in the hospitality segment and we look forward to extending this cooperation to other Mediatel products in the future”, said Radim Knobloch, Director of HotelGuide.

According to Jaromir Pazout, Operations Manager at Bookassist Czech Republic, the agreement with Mediatel gives Bookassist access to the majority of Czech hotels, while simultaneously allowing Hotelguide.cz to improve their online services to those clients. "It’s a significant advantage for both parties to the agreement and I have no doubt it will be very successful for both. With Bookassist's award-winning online booking technology and Hotelguide's industry-leading hotel database we believe that Hotelguide.cz will be soon the leading online channel for accommodation in the Czech Republic and Central Europe"

"We are delighted that Mediatel has chosen Bookassist as a partner. Bookassist excels when it comes to local customer support and Czech speaking representatives and this has been an important factor in the decision for Mediatel," added Jaroslav Tibitanzl, Director of Sales and Marketing at Bookassist Czech Republic.

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online strategy provider in Ireland. Bookassist is expanding rapidly abroad with additional offices in Spain, France, Czech Republic, Scotland, Italy, Poland and Austria and a client base of thousands of hotels. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company winner in Ireland and recently in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Austria's ARCOTEL Hotels & Resorts GmbH signs to Bookassist for Strategy and Online Technology

Dublin-based hotel online strategy and technology firm Bookassist is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Vienna-based international ARCOTEL Hotels group (www.arcotel.at), which has chosen Bookassist's strategy and technology platform for direct online business.

Bookassist will provide its award-winning online booking technology to the group as well as its industry-leading e-commerce integration with Google Analytics for pay-per-click tracking. Direct integration with the group's Protel property management system as well as Channel Management updating services are also being provided by Bookassist as part of the initial 2-year contract with the group.


The ARCOTEL Hotels & Resorts GmbH is one of the biggest family-held tourism enterprises in Austria. The group has a long history of success and is currently celebrates its 20th anniversary. With five hotels in Austria and one in Croatia, expansion has mainly focused on Germany in the past few years with the ARCOTEL Velvet Berlin, the ARCOTEL Rubin Hamburg, ARCOTEL Camino Stuttgart and the ARCOTEL John F Berlin. The ARCOTEL Onyx Hamburg hotel is due to open its doors in 2011. ARCOTEL hotels have currently over 1600 rooms throughout the group with an annual turnover of EUR 50 million in 2008. "We are looking forward to co-operation with Bookassist, as the company offers us an overall solution for the online booking process as well as excellent service quality. This is, what we expect from a competent partner", explains Manfred Mayer, ARCOTEL Hotel AG CEO.

"With ARCOTEL Hotels, you have top quality products in ideal locations. Their appeal on the internet is already high and Bookassist will help them to achieve their online sales targets and grow their online business even further in the coming years", said Dr. Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO.

"We are delighted that ARCOTEL Hotels has chosen Bookassist from among all the major players in this arena", said Yahya Fetchati, Head of Business & Operations at Bookassist. "Beyond the online expertise and technology, Bookassist excels and out-performs everyone when it comes to customer support and client satisfaction. This has been an important factor in the decision for ARCOTEL Hotels."



Pictured at the recent Bookassist training session in Vienna for Arcotel Hotels Reservation managers were, from the left, Martin Grabner (Revenue Manager, Arcotel Hotels), Patricia Oehner (Director of Reservations, Arcotel Hotels) and Gerd Weingrill (Bookassist Austria Representative).


Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Ireland. Bookassist is expanding rapidly abroad with additional offices in Spain, France, Czech Republic, Scotland, Italy, Poland and Austria and a client base of over 2000 hotels. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company in Ireland and in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Bookassist launches new bookassist.at website in Deutsch as expansion in Austria continues

Online technology and strategy company Bookassist has launched a new corporate website in Deutsch - bookassist.at - to serve the fast-growing Austrian and Southern Germany market for the company. The region has been a strong focus of expansion for the company during 2009 with both the number of hotels signed to the company's services and the number of bookings generated through the company's systems growing rapidly.


"Our local presence in the marketplace, and our local knowledge, means that we can offer hotels and groups a much higher service level than other operators in terms of online strategy", commented Gerd Weingrill, Bookassist Representative at Bookassist's Graz office. "The bookassist.at website in Deutsch is just another example of our commitment to the marketplace and to localising our services, as Bookassist always does in its markets. High service levels are what we are about."

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Ireland. Bookassist is expanding rapidly abroad with additional offices in Spain, France, Czech Republic, Scotland, Italy, Poland and Austria and a client base of over 2000 hotels. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company in Ireland and in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Bookassist Appoints Director of Sales and Marketing for Czech Republic

Jaroslav Tibitanzl has been appointed as Director of Sales & Marketing for Bookassist in the Czech Republic and joins Bookassist's existing Sales, Account Management and Support team in the Prague office.

Jaroslav is well known in the hotel industry in the Czech republic, having previously been the General Manager of the Hotel Sax, the award winning design hotel in Prague, as well as being the Director of Finance for the famous Prague landmarks the Hotel Aria and the Hotel U Zlate Studne. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Hotel University in Prague.

Bookassist Appoints new Search Optimisation Specialist

Bookassist announces the appointment of Paul Ferry to the position of Search Optimisation Specialist. The role forms part of Bookassist's Traffic Builder team and will be based in the Dublin office.

Paul has extensive web design experience with hotel and hotel group websites in particular. Bookassist continues to expand its strategic marketing teams as well as its development teams in its Dublin office, and in its offices abroad, as hotels increasingly seize the opportunity to build direct booking business on their websites.

Bookassist Appoints new Development Project Manager

Bookassist has announced the appointment of Diego Núñez as Development Project Manager. Diego will work directly with the Core Development team based at Bookassist's Madrid offices and will be responsible for leading, organizing and scheduling development for Bookassist, reporting to CTO Dr Robert Whittle.

Prior to joining Bookassist, Diego was IT Architect and Business Consultant at Panel Company. He has worked on software projects in several business fields such as Air Traffic Control, Financial Risk Analysis and Logistics/Distribution, involving Societé Generale Equipment Finance, Leroy Merlin, AENA and others. He brings considerable experience in development methodology, in particular with Java technologies, to the Bookassist team.

Hotels told economic downturn can be a strategic opportunity

Dublin, April 30th

Leading hotel software provider and online marketing company Bookassist has encouraged hotels to "wake up" and seize the opportunities for building bookings directly on their websites. Direct online booking should be the main strategy for building business in the current downturn according to the seminar held for hotels by Bookassist in Dublin on April 30th.

As part of a series of seminars around Ireland and in Bookassist's markets abroad, Thursday's Dublin event saw Bookassist sales, online marketing, web design and research staff present a series of topics to hotels in a day-long conference covering website optimisation, pay-per-click advertising, strategic marketing and the use of Web 2.0 tools. Hands-on training was also given on setting up analysis and Web 2.0 publication tools on the internet to help hotels monitor their brand online and promote their businesses while measuring the return on their online investment.

"Hotels are still missing the opportunity to capture more direct business online, and in the current climate it makes even more sense since the cost of doing business online is so much lower than any other marketing approach", said Sarah Collins, Sales Manager for Ireland (pictured above). "Hotels that get it right now will be well positioned to grow strongly when the market begins to recover again".

Bookassist will again present the day-long seminar event in Galway on May 14th and in Cork on May 26th. For further information see www.bookassist.org/seminars.

Bookassist CEO Dr Des O'Mahony at the Dublin seminar

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Ireland. Bookassist is expanding rapidly abroad with additional offices in Spain, France, Czech Republic, Scotland, Italy, Poland and Austria and a client base of over 2000 hotels. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company in Ireland and in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Click for Seminar Slideshow:

Bookassist CEO to address SMILE Conference

Bookassist CEO and Founder Dr Des O'Mahony will address the upcoming 2009 Smile Conference taking place at One Kilmainham Place on Thursday, 21st of May. Des will discuss online distribution strategies for hotels with particular emphasis on what hotels should and should not be doing online in the current economic climate.

The schedule for the Smile conference is at www.smileconference.com.

This year, the Smile conference organisers are responding to the particular challenges that the industry is facing through a number of initiatives. In particular, the organisers
• are focussed on Key Opportunities for delegates by addressing the following red hot topics: Revenue Management, Digital Media, Distribution Strategy & Masterful Selling.
• have launched the Facebook Failte call to action which aims to issue one hundred thousand welcomes to family and friends overseas to visit Ireland in 2009 (see http://tiny.cc/FacebookFailte).
• have reduced ticket prices from the usual €295 to €195.
• are offering a special ticket price of €150 for group purchases of three or more.

Czech Seminar highlights Strategies for Building Hotel Business

Bookassist held a very successful series of presentations for hotels in the Czech Republic on how to implement Strategies to Build Business in the current downturn on Thursday April 23. The seminar took place at the Irish Embassy in central Prague and was introduced by Ladislav Muller, Director of Enterprise Ireland (pictured, right) in the Czech Republic and by H.E. Mr Donal Hamill, Irish Ambassador to the Czech Republic (pictured, left).

The seminar focused on the increasing need for hotels to concentrate their marketing effort on online business and the opportunities that this channel presents even in the current economic downturn. Optimising traffic to hotel websites, increasing look to book conversion, online marketing methods and strategic analysis of online yield as well as visitor and booking data were all presented and discussed in the context of the market place in the Czech republic.

The presentations were delivered by Yahya Fetchati and Des O'Mahony of Bookassist, and chaired by Jaromir Pazout from Bookassist's Prague office.

Bookassist Head of Business & Operations Yahya Fetchati

Bookassist Appoints new Support Coordinator in the Czech Republic

Leading online marketing consultant and booking technology company Bookassist has appointed Andrea Houdková as Support Coordinator to join the team in Bookassist's Prague office. Andrea will coordinate the set-up and training of hotels and groups using the Bookassist Booking Engine and other products such as GDS Manager.

Andrea has previously worked as a professional trainer for internet banking at Raiffeisenbank in the Czech Republic. Prior to joining Bookassist she was with Citibank as Account Manager with responsibility for international payments.

Spanish and Portuguese groups move to Bookassist

Market-leading booking technology company Bookassist announces that two large hotel groups in Portugal and Spain have signed to the Bookassist platform for booking technology, support systems and online marketing. The groups will be managed from Bookassist's Madrid office.

Portuguese hotel group Eurosol hotels (eurosol.pt) includes 9 hotels in Portugal and a further 2 hotels in Brazil. All hotels will use the system and avail of Bookassist's multilingual and multicurrency booking technology. Corporate booking facilities and Loyalty systems, as well as Traffic Builder online marketing services are also available as part of the Bookassist suite of services.

Citymar hotels and apartments (citymar.com) comprises 15 hotels across the south of Spain in Granada, Almeria, Cadiz and Toledo. The hotels offer a mix of beach, golf, ski and city properties. The versatility of the Bookassist booking engine is ideal for the group, allowing for configurations for standard sale, family rooms, apartments with special sale conditions etc.

The Citymar group will use Corporate booking and Loyalty systems, as well as Traffic Builder online marketing services and additionally avails of Bookassist's GDS Manager service to give them a complete platform solution.

With a suite of integrated products forming a complete online transaction platform for groups, Bookassist is increasingly providing the exact solutions that groups and chains need to switch the majority of their business to direct online bookings, reducing their cost of sale and building their brand online.

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Ireland. Bookassist is expanding rapidly abroad with additional offices in Spain, France, Czech Republic, Scotland, Italy, Poland and Austria and a client base of over 2000 hotels. A Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company in Ireland and in the Top 100 Deloitte Technology Companies in Europe, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Award for online trade.

Recruitment - Bookassist is expanding and hiring in multiple offices

Bookassist is recruiting to build its teams in a number of its offices over the coming months in order to deal with the increasing client list and ongoing expansion of its geographical reach. Despite the economic downturn in many areas, Bookassist business has continued to see year-on-year growth with March showing record booking numbers.

Bookassist has introduced a number of new products recently which are bringing added value to its partnerships with hotels and hotel groups in all its operational areas and which are allowing it to more quickly enter new markets with a very mature and established product offering.

Bookassist growth is accelerating and we will be announcing major new acquisitions and market developments in the coming weeks.

For further information on positions available at Bookassist, see Bookassist Jobs http://www.bookassist.org/jobs.jsp

Bookassist launches 2009 Seminar Series for Dublin, Cork, Galway on Strategies for building hotel business in the downturn

Leading technology and online strategy provider to the accommodation sector Bookassist (Bookassist.org) has announced its 2009 Seminar Series to help hotels get the most from effective marketing strategies online.

Taking place in Dublin on April 30th, Galway on May 14th and Cork on May 26th, Bookassist will introduce research and concepts in the rapidly moving field of online trade and marketing with a strong emphasis on what hotels should be doing right now to best deal with the downturn and to be best positioned for the upturn when it comes.

Participants are strongly encouraged to bring a laptop for live interactive break out sessions. Shared Laptops will be more than adequate where 2 or 3 people are attending from the same Hotel or Company.

Who should attend?
General Managers, Sales Executives, Sales & Marketing Managers, Front Office Managers, Operations Managers, Yield Managers, Reservation Agents

Participants will learn how to:
- Boost their web address in the search engine results
- Manage and track on-line advertising and ROI with Google and Analytics
- Take care of their brand on-line by being proactive with reviews
- Boost the conversion on their website and upsell
- Set up and effectively use Web 2.0 blogs and Google Local
- Effectively market their brand through newsletters and Web 2.0 strategies
- Optimise for value rather than price to hold occupancy

For more information visit bookassist.org/seminars
or email seminars@bookassist.com

Softguide Madrid featured on New York Times travel

Bookassist's major accommodation affiliate website in Madrid, Softguide Madrid, has been featured in today's edition of the New York Times. The travel section, with a feature on "36 Hours in Madrid", specifically recommends the accommodation section of Softguide Madrid for alternative accommodation to the standard hotel stay, with lofts and apartments featured.

Softguides in all destinations is underpinned by Bookassist's channel accommodation technology which also operates accommodation services for other high-traffic affiliate websites such as visitdublin.com and others. The Bookassist system's ability to equally offer hotels, apartments, and variable stay lodging makes it an ideal platform for any website seeking to supply the widest possible accommodation service for their target destination.

Softguides.com is a major destination information website that was one of the first ever web-based travel guides on the internet in the early days of the web. Softguides covers all manner of tourism information such as local customs, local events, restaurants, bars, culture, shopping and of course accommodation. Operating since as long back as 1995, Softguide Madrid has one of the highest traffic levels of any site in Madrid and is considered an authority on the city.

See New York Times Travel