Czesc Polsko! Bookassist launches hotel reservation software services in Poland

Bookassist has launched its award-winning booking engine technology in Poland with initial hotels going live for direct sales online through their own websites in the popular destinations of Warsaw and Krakow.



Piotr Byrski, Lukasz Kidon and Anna Stabrawa of Wirtualny Turysta, Bookassist's exclusive partner for Poland, are the initial team involved in market research, sales and technical implementation of Bookassist technology for hotels in the region and have been planning the market penetration strategy for a number of months. In the coming weeks, hotels which are currently being trained in the use of the technology will be coming on stream.

The continuing fast growth of tourism in Poland and in the accommodation sector in particular represents a strong opportunity for expansion of Bookassist services, and with many Polish hotels going on the internet for the first time and availing of the direct sales approach, Bookassist products and technology are the ideal mature platform for the emerging internet travel sector.

In recent months, Bookassist has expanded its services with offices in Italy and France also, supplementing the more established offices in Ireland, Spain, Scotland and the Czech Republic.

Almost 90% rate Bookassist booking engine at 8/10 or higher

Almost 90% of customers rate the Bookassist booking engine experience at 8/10 or higher, with almost 60% giving it 10/10

A staggering 89.4% of online users who have used the Bookassist booking engine rate the system at 8/10 or higher, with a significant majority of users, almost 60%, giving it a full thumbs up with the highest 10/10 rating, according to statistics gathered from tens of thousands of users and released on the bookassist.org corporate website.

Bookassist has been collecting reviews from customers and have amassed tens of thousands of customer comments on the system. After having stayed at a hotel, customers receive a follow up email to comment on their experience, which forms the backbone of Bookassist's popular customer reviews for hotels. Hotels can feature these reviews on their own website as part of the Bookassist Travel 2.0 booking engine.

However, Bookassist also asks customers about the booking engine experience so that this information can be used to continually improve the customer experience. With thousands of bookings made a week using embedded Bookassist technology on hotel websites and affiliate channels, this is critical and valuable information. Coupled with analysis of the way customers use the booking process, this information has led to substantial advances in the booking engine design, advances which, while technically accomplished, lead to a simplicity for the online user instead of more complication. Bookassist advocates the multi-screen approach to the booking process for many reasons, rather than the single page approach that some vendors promote. Independent research has shown this approach to be vindicated for user friendliness and clarity of the process and it is industry best practice.

Having a customer centric approach, rather than a technology centric approach has been a cornerstone of how Bookassist has operated over the last 8 years in the online reservations arena and has been the open secret of Bookassist's success to date.

Bookassist connects live to SoftBrands PORTfolio PMS

Bookassist and SoftBrands announced today that they have implemented a direct connection between the Bookassist online reservations system and the SoftBrands PORTfolio Property Management System allowing for live interaction from web to the reservations desk.

SoftBrands, Inc., a global supplier of enterprise application software, has significant traction in the Irish and UK marketplaces with PORTfolio PMS. Bookassist is the market leading Irish company for web-enabled hotel reservations. "Being able to marry the two systems together brings the best of both worlds to hoteliers", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist Managing Director. "Hoteliers with PORTfolio can now also have a feature rich Travel 2.0 booking engine online while significantly saving on effort in coordinating their offering and their online bookings with their PMS system".

Among the first adopters of the integration effort is the Mercer Hotel Group. "For more than three years we have been searching for a solution to how we can reduce the margin of error, reduce duplication of tasks and save our reservations resources to focus on revenue management.", said Michelle Doherty, Group Sales & Marketing Manager for Mercer Accommodation Group and the New Great Southern Group. "The Bookassist & SoftBrands integration works seamlessly, leaving us to focus on our core activities and not bogging us down in technical and system issues. This allows us to react much more quickly in a very challenging and competitive market place."

Bookassist XML reservations can be tied to any system that recognises Open Travel Alliance's OTA/XML standards.

Bookassist launches new corporate website

Bookassist has today launched a completely new corporate website on the bookassist.org domain to give comprehensive online information on Bookassist services and products and to integrate Hotel Industry blogs and client services in one single location.

"Bookassist corporate information has been a section of the bookassist.com website for years, but with so many visitors looking for direct information on Bookassist products and services, we felt that the corporate information was a little too hidden on the bookassist.com site. We wanted it more directly accessible and we felt it was time to revamp our product descriptions as well as showcase some great innovations that we've been responsible for over the years", said Mary Collins, Web Presence Team Leader. "Bookassist.com can be focused solely now on online marketing and promotion for our clients."

bookassist.org features clear and concise product information and service descriptions for the Booking Engine, Traffic Builder and Site Builder products. It also integrates significant hotel industry information as a general service for hotels, with Bookassist staff picking important information from the hospitality industry blogsphere for publication, as well as writing detailed how-to's and helpful hints for hotels in the online marketplace. "We've been working hard with our seminars and workshops for our client hotels in various countries to make sure they have expert information on dealing with sales and promotion online, but we're happy to share the company expertise to a more general audience also through our new corporate website blogs. Making this expertise available publicly is a pretty novel thing to do, and we plan on building this into a good resource for the hospitality industry", said Des O'Mahony, Bookassist co-founder and managing director.

Trade Dinner in Prague

Bookassist invited a number of hotel and hotel group clients to the Ireland - Czech Republic Trade Dinner organised by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Embassy on May 28th at the Intercontinental Hotel in Prague. The Trade Dinner was hosted by His Excellency Donal Hamill, ambassador to the Czech Republic and Ladislav Muller, Enterprise Ireland Director for the Czech Republic & Slovakia. Bookassist continues to expand in the Czech Republic with its focus on the direct sales model for hotel and group websites, and in particular has signed a number of hotel groups in recent weeks.


Bookassist's Managing Director Des O'Mahony (left) with His Excellency Donal Hamill


Bookassist Czech Republic Sales Manager Jitka Krizova (left) with Jaroslav Tibitanzl of the Vintage Design Hotel Sax


Ivan Gruza of the Hotel Hoffmeister (left) with Bookassist's Kieran Fives


Patrick Rieger (left) and Kristian Hanslik (centre) of the Hotel Hastal with Bookassist's Yahya Fetchati


Bookassist's Des O'Mahony (left) with Miroslava Micurova of the Bellagio Hotel

Cara Hotels deploys Bookassist Groupwide Travel 2.0 Services

The Cara Hotel Group in Ireland is the first in Ireland to take advantage of the new Bookassist groupwide Travel 2.0 services which builds directly on the Travel 2.0 Booking Engine services launched recently, another industry first.

The advanced services allow Hotel Groups to offer all hotels for booking in one site, as well as take advantage of Google mapping services, integrated with booking, customer reviews, electronic vouchers and more, all directly integrated into the group site.

•  Mapping Services for groups allow all member hotels to have their availability graphically displayed on a single map for customer convenience,
•  Groupwide Booking allows customers to look at dynamic live pricing and availability across all the group member hotels in one simple convenient page in multiple languages,
•  Individual hotel pages then allow customers to choose from Booking as well as Travel 2.0 services like Reviews, eVoucher and Location tabs to get detailed information on each property, with the entire booking process available as usual in multiple languages.

"The Groupwide Booking Services are another industry first and our feedback from groups shows that this is going to be a real winner", according to Roshan McPartland, Operations Manager for Ireland at Bookassist. "Group brands are a valuable marketing tool and group sites need to be as enabled and Web 2.0 aware as individual hotels. So we've worked hard to make sure the service levels are as good if not better for groups. The back-end administration system allows for detailed monitoring and yield management also group-wide, so there are major advantages behind the scenes as well."

There are no additional charges for Hotel Groups for the use of these industry leading features.

Powerful Reporting launched by Bookassist

In a free upgrade to the award winning Bookassist Booking Engine, Bookassist today launched the most comprehensive reporting facilities on the market and a vital aid to online strategic planning and yield management for hotels. The reporting facilities are just part of a comprehensive update to the Bookassist administration system which also features extended language support and new account management features.

The industry-leading Bookassist Booking Engine now offers almost 30 new report styles, each with multiple options to give hundreds of different possible reports on bookings, trends and yields as well as optimisation reports which help you plan based on future bookings and availability. Bookassist developers have made early use of the Google Chart API, announced as recently as December 2007, to provide a rich graphical interface for all data. The new reporting facility additionally features downloadable data files so hoteliers can see how their system is performing at a glance.

"The breadth of reporting now available in the Bookassist Engine is an absolutely unique innovation in the marketplace. Nobody can offer the quality of reporting and the ease of use that Bookassist can with this latest free upgrade", said Karen Fives, Director of Development. "We know how important reporting is, fast and relevant reporting. We have researched our client base conducting hundreds of interviews to ensure that this big leap forward in technology would deliver what everyone wanted. For our long term clients, the system has literally years of data that can now be easily accessed giving long term trend information", according to Dr Robert Whittle, Director of Technology.

Bookassist continues to innovate in both technology and customer service, helping hotels strategically plan their internet business and lower their cost of sale.

Four years of SMS services in Bookassist Booking Engine

Bookassist celebrates four years of SMS messaging this month.

Making a reservation on any of hundreds of Bookassist client hotels has always been easy, but it's also remarkable convenient. Your reservation details can be delivered by SMS text message instantly when you click the confirm reservation button. There are still very few systems in the marketplace that have managed to develop SMS text messaging as part of their offering, indeed a recent press release from a new Irish online reservations company quoted the company founder as saying that SMS was an innovation they were planning for somewhere down the line! But Bookassist have been using SMS technology to underpin their reservations engine for 4 years now, another example of the technical innovation that Bookassist has brought and continues to bring to the marketplace. Bookassist extends SMS to the hospitality provider also in a number of ways, one of which is to allow proprietors to receive SMS notifications of bookings made. This has been particularly advantageous for guesthouse or apartment operators, where a permanent reception desk is not manned.

Travel 2.0 crucial to Hospitality Industry

The importance of Travel 2.0 to the Irish hospitality industry was outlined by John Hearne of the Irish Examiner today in conversation with Des O'Mahony of Bookassist.

See Examiner 20080415.pdf
© Irish Examiner

Bookassist seminar highlights importance of Travel 2.0 to the hotel industry's bottom line

At a wide-ranging seminar event for the hospitality industry on Wednesday April 9th, Bookassist, the leading hospitality booking engine provider and online marketing partner provided over 70 hotel owners and managers with a snapshot of where their industry is going in the coming years and just how rapidly it is getting there. The warning was clear that the hospitality industry must stay on top of research and innovation in the online arena if they are to fully benefit from the medium.

The move towards direct business on the hotel's own website, reducing reliance on online third parties, is now well underway in the industry, driven by the online customer's desire to obtain the best rates from source. The customer is increasingly savvy online and is prepared to shop around, and this has been highlighted recently by industry research showing that the top travel websites worldwide are no longer travel booking sites, but travel blogs and online travel discussion sites where people trade ideas and opinions before they go to source to book. Bookassist has been promoting this direct business model as the industry's future for a number of years now, with its Booking Engine software and Traffic Builder online marketing services, and has seen its own clients' direct business increase rapidly in recent years. "A recent survey of our main hotel clients in Ireland has shown that on average over 55% of their entire revenue is now generated online", said Roshan McPartland, Operations Manager for Bookassist in Ireland. "Bookassist technology is helping to deliver up to 70% of that online revenue to our hotel partners in many cases. We stay on top of research into developing trends and can innovate rapidly, as we have consistently done to date, to ensure our clients get the best possible advantage online".

The seminar event, part of series to be held in Bookassist's major markets in the coming 12 months, was held at the Radisson Royal Hotel in Dublin City Centre and was opened by a perspective on the next 25 years in internet distribution by Co-founder and Managing Director at Bookassist, Dr Des O'Mahony. Guest speakers included Colin Lewis of Aer Arann discussing online marketing strategies and Mark Rodgers of Cipherion, a Bookassist partner company, who presented on the necessities of a multilingual approach to the online global market. Bookassist Senior Search Engine Specialist Foncho Ramírez Corzo discussed the Web 2.0 phenomenon of customer generated media and its impact on the industry, while Senior Search Engine Marketer Ciaran Rowe (pictured above) covered a broad range of topics in online marketing techniques. "Getting more market intelligence into the hands of our clients, allowing them to see clear data on their online business that allows them to properly plan their online strategies is a key part of what we are trying to do at Bookassist", said Roshan McPartland, who finished the seminar day with a preview of the advanced new reporting features coming in the next upgrade of the market leading Bookassist Booking Engine.

The seminar event was also attended by staff from Bookassist offices abroad giving an international perspective on an increasingly global market.


Roshan Mc Partland & Dr Des O'Mahony - Bookassist, Lloyd Harnett - Absolute Hotel.com, Colin Lewis - Aer Arann


Terry McCoy - RedBank House, Dr Des O'Mahony - Bookassist, Emma Allen - Mespil Hotel, Paul Gallagher - Buswells Hotel


Siobhan Byrne - Leixlip House Hotel, Josephine Hutton - Talbot Hotel Carlow, Catherine Redmond - Stillorgan Park Hotel, Louise Marini - Talbot Hotel Wexford


Marie Sharpe - Bookassist, Jacinta Naughton & Amanda O'Sullivan - Portlaoise Heritage Hotel, Sandra Jackson - Fitzpatricks Castle Hotel

Bookassist launches Sitebuilder - web sites done right

At a seminar attended by over 70 hotel managers and sales managers, Bookassist today announced Sitebuilder, a comprehensive solution for hotels wishing to build a 21st century website presence. Sitebuilder is a complete content management system that integrates Bookassist's Booking Engine and Travel2.0 technology and allows for electronic marketing to play a central part in a hotel's online strategy.

"Sitebuilder is a very flexible solution which not only delivers a good looking well designed website, but has cutting edge technology under the hood to allow for full management of the content as well as email marketing", said Mary Collins, Web Presence Team Leader at Bookassist. "We have actually been trialing the service for a few months but the seminar today was an ideal time for the official launch. The best thing about this is that the websites are quite unique for each client, it doesn't have the 'template' feel that so many other content management systems suffer from."

Contact Bookassist directly if you are interested in further details on Bookassist Sitebuilder.

Globe '08 trade fair in Rome

In the same month that Bookassist unveiled its new Travel2.0 booking engine, Bookassist's Italy operation also attended the trade fair in Rome - Globe 08.

Globe 08 is now one of the biggest trade fairs held in Italy and attracted over 35,000 delegates from hotels, tour operators, travel agents and technology companies from Italy, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean.

The Bookassist Italy team of Marco Buitoni, Sonia Marsella and Claudio Gallo were kept very busy meeting with clients. Sonia commented that there was a lot in interest in the Bookassist Travel2.0 booking engine in addition to the online marketing program "Trafficbuilder". Sonia also made the point that "while there is still a reliance on traditional 3rd party channels in Italy, hotels in Italy also see the value in carrying out online marketing for their own website and brand"

Bookassist's Operations Manager for Ireland, Roshan McPartland, also delivered a workshop presentation which highlighted the new challenges that exist for the accommodation sector in marketing their properties online as well as looking at current trends which are already affecting the industry.


In attendance at the Globe Trade Fair representing Bookassist were Marco Buitoni, Sonia Marsella (pictured above), Claudio Gallo, Francesca Frizzoni, Mauro Camiglia and Roshan McPartland from the Ireland Office (pictured below).

Major Product Rollout from Bookassist embeds Travel2.0 functionality directly in client hotel websites

The nature of the internet is rapidly changing. The online accommodation business is moving away from the large channel operators and directly to the hotel's own website. But the modern or second generation internet user wants real information and service online, with trustworthy customer generated media and interactivity as well as security in booking. The popularity of sites such as TripAdvisor and others is testament to the power of social media in the travel arena, but reviews on such sites can be generated by anyone whether they have knowledge of the service or not. Gathering reviews from genuine customers ensures a proper balance of views for the online reader.

Bookassist has been at the forefront of research into modern internet technologies and Web2.0/Travel2.0 developments in particular and now brings these key technologies into a new product offering for client hotel websites.

Hotels can now avail of not just the most advanced direct booking engine technology in the marketplace, with live secure banking transacting, multiple languages and multiple currencies, multiple room booking capability, add-ons and much more, but they can also now embed directly in their website functionality for the sale of online electronic vouchers redeemable online in the booking process; show customer generated reviews, automatically requested by the Bookassist system of customers who have actually booked with and stayed in the hotel; display their location on their website using Google maps as a background with citywide information nearby for their customers' benefit, information which is continually added to by Bookassist. Additionally, hotel groups can enable group and individual website with these features to tie the group functionality together and increase business transfer between members of a group.

The current suite of functions - Maps, Reviews, Vouchers, Booking - are just the first of a series of planned functions and can be combined in a tabbed format on a single page or can be embedded as separate elements or pages throughout the website. The information is dynamic and streams directly from the Bookassist database ensuring it is constantly up to date.

Dublin's Mercer Hotel has been the first to go live with this enhanced functionality from Bookassist which is now available to all Bookassist clients. "We are delighted with Bookassist's latest integration of maps, genuine customer reviews and e-vouchers within the booking engine software suite. We hope that this first step towards integrating Travel2.0 within booking engine software will benefit our customers and will enhance their booking experience greatly", said Michelle Doherty, Group Sales & Marketing Manager at the Great Southern Hotel/Mercer Accommodation Group.

"What you are beginning to see here is the enabling of a hotel to compete directly with the big Travel2.0 players, channels which have built their market share on providing detailed mapping and reviews for example.", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Co-founder and Managing Director at Bookassist. "If a hotel is providing rich online services, there is no need for the customer to go to these TripAdvisor style sites to get the additional information they might want, so there is less chance for the hotel of losing the customer.

"No other supplier is focused so strongly on the hotel's website, partnering with the hotel to bring more and more direct business to them, and we believe that with this major upgrade we are years ahead of what is on offer in the Irish marketplace and indeed further afield", said O'Mahony.

Bookassist press conference in Madrid highlights Iberia as a major growth target for the company

Bookassist held a major press event in Madrid today to highlight the latest features in the Bookassist Booking Engine and Trafficbuilder services. The event highlighted Iberia as a major focus for the company, with Bookassist having expanded the Madrid office team significantly in the past 6 months and having entered the Portuguese market also. The press event was attended by over 40 journalists and hoteliers and was followed by brunch and a discussion forum.

Pictured are Foncho Ramirez-Corzo, Cristina Arano Apestegui, Vanesa Manzano Cubo, Dr Des O'Mahony, Dr Robert Whittle, Ismael Garcia Ortega, Eva Reyero.

Ciaran Rowe appointed to lead the Trafficbuilder team at Bookassist's Irish office as Bookassist continues to grow rapidly

Ciaran Rowe will be responsible for operations in the Trafficbuilder service team for the Irish market at Bookassist. Ciaran has been with the company since early 2007 and has been involved in the planning and strategy behind the rapid expansion of the Trafficbuilder team throughout 2007 and 2008. He is Senior Search Engine Marketer with Bookassist and is a qualified Google Adwords Professional.

Bookassist has doubled its total staff in the 12 months since February 2007, in all areas ranging from strategic management and finance to sales, research, development and online marketing expertise.

Hotel with Bookassist Technology hits World Top 100

Travel review site Tripadvisor have just published their Travelers' Choice Awards for 2008, listing the top 100 hotels in the world. Only one Irish hotel makes the mark: coming in at 69 is the 5-star St. Clerans Manor House in Galway, which uses the Bookassist engine on its website www.stclerans.com.

Congratulations to St Clerans from the Bookassist team for an excellent and well deserved achievement!

See Tripadvisor PDF Travelers Choice Awards.

Bookassist is a Google Adwords Professional Company

Bookassist has earned Google Adwords Professional Company status from Google. The Trafficbuilder online marketing service, which has seen Bookassist client hotels make extraordinary gains in direct sales online, is staffed entirely by qualified Google Adwords Professionals in the various Bookassist offices, which is a minimum requirement for joining the team.

Bookassist's professional status can be viewed online here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/ProfessionalStatus?id=Jn12_C0slQ8vCuuoFgAnFg&hl=en_US

Bookassist makes strong impact at FITUR Spain

Bookassist had a significant presence at the FITUR trade fair in Madrid, with the Bookassist Spain team kept busy meeting hundreds of hotel and hospitality clients and introducing the Bookassist Booking Engine and Trafficbuilder services at the company's booth. Cristina Arano, Head of Operations for Spain, noted strong interest in Trafficbuilder in particular: "Hotels and hotel groups are waking up to the importance of promoting their own brand online and the services Bookassist is offering are tailored exactly to what the market needs right now".


The Spanish team at FITUR comprised Cristina Arano Apestegui, Ismael García Ortega, Vanesa Manzano Cubo, Leire Fernandez Rojo, Foncho Ramírez Corzo, Eva Reyero and Robert Whittle, assisted by Kieran Fives and Yahya Fetchati from the Dublin office and Pauline Cuisine from the Paris office.


Bookassist Director Dr Robert Whittle (above) also delivered a workshop presentation on future technologies in the internet space and how they will impact online hospitality business in the years to come, showcasing some of Bookassist's research in this area and technologies due to launch soon.

Bookassist appoints new Business Development Advisor

Christina Roche has been appointed as Business Development Advisor in Bookassist's Dublin office. Christina will work directly with Bookassist partner clients to help increase direct revenue through their hotel websites.

Christina is a graduate of the Dublin Institute of Technology at Cathal Brugha Street where she studied for a degree in Hospitality Management. Prior to her appointment with Bookassist Christina worked as Reservations Manager in the Irish Management Institute.

Bookassist appoints new financial controller

Vivian Kelly has joined Bookassist as Financial Controller for the Group. Prior to this role, Vivian worked in Property Development and IT Consultancy working with various Companies in both the Hospitality and Travel Reservation Software Industry.

Vivian is an associate of the Irish Institute of Taxation and also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

Bookassist Directors address Czech Hotels Association

Bookassist directors address the annual conference of the Association of Hotels & Restaurants (AHR) in the Czech Republic on the Future of Internet Distribution

At the recent annual conference of the Association of Hotels & Restaurants of the Czech Republic, Bookassist was invited to present their view of the future of internet distribution over the next quarter century.

Operating in the internet environment since 1994, Bookassist Managing Director and Co-founder Dr Des O'Mahony has seen the development of the internet first hand and has closely followed the research and trends in the accommodation sector online in particular for over a decade. "Our experience in Bookassist of what has and hasn't worked, what technology has taken off and what technology has died, is invaluable in predicting the shape of the internet in the future for the accommodation sector and for our clients in particular", according to Dr O'Mahony.

The conference was also addressed by Bookassist Director and Co-founder Kieran Fives who provided an overview of the company and its products to the delegates. The conference was attended by over 300 delegates over a two day period in the picturesque town of Tabor, south of Prague and included the annual awards ceremony of the AHR.

Jitka Krizova (pictured) heads Bookassist's office in the Czech Republic.

Bookassist office opens in Italy

Bookassist to roll out Booking Engine and Trafficbuilder services in Italy, launches Bookassist Italy office.

Bookassist has this month launched its award-winning services on the ground in Italy with an initial base in Perugia, Umbria. The Italian office will be responsible for the roll-out of the Bookassist Engine incorporating new Travel2.0 technology being pioneered by Bookassist as part of the booking engine suite, as well as Bookassist Trafficbuilder marketing services.

The initial Bookassist team in Italy comprises Marco Buitoni, Sonia Marsella, Francesca Frizzoni and Mauro Camiglia who between them have many years experience in the travel trade and in the hospitality sector in particular in Italy.

"We are excited to be moving in such a dynamic marketplace with such strong potential, and we have exciting plans for 2008 and beyond for Italy", said Yahya Fetchati, Head of Business & Operations at Bookassist. "The potential for Bookassist's very effective and personalised approach is enormous in Italy and the combination of our local knowledge and Bookassist's award-winning services will lead to a considerable success", predicts Buitoni.

Bookassist clients at HSMAI

Bookassist client Cork International Airport Hotel wins Best Website at the annual HSMAI Awards - Multiple Bookassist clients nominated

The travel and hospitality industry honoured its best and brightest at the 11th Annual Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Awards at a Gala Dinner at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin.

Bookassist online marketing (Trafficbuilder) and web reservations (Booking Engine) client Cork International Aiport Hotel won the award for "Best Website for an Individual Operator". The Hotel leverages Bookassist expertise for online marketing and has driven subsantial business through its website by capitalising on Bookassist's state of the art Booking Engine and administration system.

Apart from the winner in the Best Website category, Bookassist clients were nominated in categories:

*Best Customer Retention Strategy - Portlaoise Heritage Hotel

*Best Hotel Brochure Business & Leisure Market - Cork International Airport Hotel

*Best Hotel Brochure Luxury Hotel - Osprey Hotel & Spa, Portlaoise Heritage Hotel

Mary Collins to head Trafficbuilder strategy development across all offices at Bookassist

The Board has appointed Mary Collins, Web Presence Team Leader at Bookassist, to also head overall Trafficbuilder strategy development across all Bookassist offices. Bookassist Trafficbuilder services for online marketing are operated out of a number of Bookassist offices in different countries, since the service often requires localisation.

Mary has been with Bookassist since its formation in 1999 and is a Physics graduate of the Dublin Institute of Technology and a Management graduate of the National College of Ireland. She has held a number of development and management positions over the years at Bookassist.

Bookassist appoints Operations Manager for the Spanish Office

Cristina Arano joins Bookassist Spain office as Head of Operations in Spain

Bookassist has announced that Cristina Arano has joined the company as Operations Manager for Spain. Cristina Arano has over 12 years experience in the travel industry, working in the UK and Spain, occupying various positions in intermediary companies such as hotel Contracting Manager for international markets and Director of Sales. She will have direct responsibility for the 10 staff currently in Madrid and will oversee expansion.

Cristina Arano is based in Bookassist's office in Madrid and oversees the development and growth of the company in Spain

Bookassist appoints Sales Manager in Ireland

Bookassist appoints Sarah Collins to head Sales in Ireland

Sarah Collins has joined Bookassist as Sales Manager (Ireland). Sarah will obtain new business to partner with Bookassist, who provide an award-winning booking engine and proven online marketing expertise. Bookassist are at the forefront of online reservations technology with offices in Ireland, Spain, Scotland, Czech Republic and Argentina. Prior to this Sarah held the position of Sales and Marketing Executive with the Irish Hospitality Institute. She is delighted to continue working within the Hospitality Industry, where she can maintain the relationships she made during her time with the Irish Hospitality Institute.

A native of Co. Limerick, Sarah spent 4 years in Cardiff where she obtained a Degree in Marketing.

Bookassist appoints Sales Manager in Spain

Ismael García-Ortega Camino has been appointed to head the sales division in Spain and Portugal markets to grow business and introduce the Bookassist Bookingengine and Trafficbuilder services, as the perfect technological partner to mainly drive bookings directly into the hotel's website and reduce distribution costs.

Ismael García-Ortega Camino brings significant experience in the world of tourism, particularly in hotels. Since he graduated in Business and Tourism Activities at the UNED over the past ten years his career has led him to play different positions in chains such as Rafael Hoteles and Hoteles Porcel and also on the side of the Tour Operation in companies such as Bancotel.

Bookassist appoints Head of Business & Operations

Bookassist appoints Yahya Fetchati as Head of Business and Operations.

Bookassist has announced that Mr Yahya Fetchati has joined the company as Head of Business & Operations. Yahya Fetchati brings considerable industry experience to the management team at Bookassist and is a former Director of Hotel Partner Marketing at Lastminute.com and former Managing Director of Hotels for Europe at Hotels.com.

Yahya Fetchati has worked in the online hospitality industry for well over a decade. He is based in the Dublin office and will oversee all strategy and sales operations at Bookassist in all marketplaces, reporting directly to the Board.

Bookassist "add-ons" allowing accommodation providers to package additional room-specific or hotel-specific services with bookings

Fancy a bottle of chilled champagne in your room on arrival? Want to avail of special spa treatments as part of your booking? The Bookassist system now allows the hotelier to offer optional services in virtually any configuration to the online customer as part of the booking process.

Many hotels are now founded on the upsurge in the leisure market, with weekend breaks and spa treatments going hand in hand. At the same time, the downward pressure on accommodation prices means that spa treatment packages are not for everyone and the room only price band is a must for the online booker. Allowing a menu of optional add-ons to the basic room-only package is the best approach to tackling both markets in the one system. With this latest Bookassist innovation, the hotelier can offer room-specific services for each room booked and can simultaneously offer hotel-specific services for the whole booking party in one easy to use booking interface.

As always with Bookassist system enhancements, the upgrade is completely free for users of the Bookassist system.

Bookassist launches flexible "variations" configuration of room packages for accommodation providers

A significant new innovation of the Bookassist online reservations booking engine now allows accommodation providers far greater flexibility in packaging their rooms in multiple configurations simplifying the choice for the online customer.

An individual room ("single", "double" etc) can now be configured to be sold in may different variations, such as with or without breakfast, at a special advance purchase rate, as a weekend break etc,. rather than having to define all those variations as separate room types as is necessary in many online systems. With Bookassist it is now simple for the hotelier to offer an unlimited range of services and far easier for the online customer to make a choice.

As always with Bookassist system enhancements, the upgrade is completely free for users of the Bookassist system.