Bookassist announces iPhone hotel app, location-aware mobile app featuring customer reviews

MADRID - Hotel reservations system supplier Bookassist has announced a full-featured location-aware booking application for Apple iPhone and mobile devices merging mobility and hotel sales for its hotel clients. The new application for hotels was announced as part of Bookassist’s annual presence at the FITUR international tourism trade fair in Madrid. Hotels using Bookassist booking systems can now offer a state-of-the-art application to their customers to complement their web presence. Location-aware mapping with automatic routing, customer reviews, photo galleries and full transaction engine for booking are among the key features of the new mobile system for hotels.

Speaking at FITUR, Bookassist Head of Business and Operations Yahya Fetchati commented that “the new app will be customised for each individual hotel and will be available to all our hotel clients. As with all our products, our mobile platform will see continual development and upgrading to keep pace with the fast-moving mobile computing market”.

Commenting on the features of the iPhone app, Bookassist CEO Dr Des O'Mahony said: "Social media plays a big part in the travel decision and customer reviews are particularly important. Because hotels using Bookassist software have been automatically collecting customer reviews for many years, and responding to their customers' comments, the new app will have significant value for the hotel's potential customers in terms of feeding all that customer-generated content right into the app for every hotel."

The mobile application is currently on limited release and will be more widely available to hotels and hotel groups using Bookassist's booking engine in March 2010.

Bookassist® creates and manages successful and proven online strategies for over 2200 hotels and groups worldwide 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.

Apple and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc. registered in the US and other countries.

Bookassist and protel announce technology integration, further streamlines online business for hotels

In a major upgrade to its XML Connector technology, Dublin-based hotel technology and online strategy firm Bookassist (bookassist.org) has announced the successful integration of its award-winning online booking engine with the protel (protel-hotel-software.com) hotel property management system (PMS).

The solution allows hotels using protel PMS products in-house and Bookassist's booking engine on their websites to seamlessly connect the two technologies. Incoming reservations from the website booking engine are automatically passed to the PMS, eliminating the need for any management or intervention by hotel staff.

Time and cost savings are the obvious advantage for hotels, together with improved accuracy of data in the PMS and a more up-to-the-minute representation of availability.

The OTA/XML-based integration of the two systems has already been deployed across all hotels in the ARCOTEL Hotel group (arcotel.at) in Austria, Germany and Croatia. According to Manfred Mayer, CEO of ARCOTEL Hotels, "At ARCOTEL, we needed a fully integrated solution from online booking engine to front desk, and Bookassist's successful integration with protel has given us exactly what we need. We are very happy with the results and it has streamlined our reservations operation considerably."

Speaking about the collaboration, Dr Robert Whittle CTO & Founder at Bookassist commented: "Using our OTA/XML interface layer, connections with compliant systems such as protel's PMS is now a straightforward task. protel's interface team in Dortmund and Bookassist's core development team in Madrid worked very closely to bring this integrated solution to the market place in a very short space of time, and we see great opportunities for further collaboration for our joint clients in the future."

Manfred Osthues, co-founder and managing director of protel, shares this point of view: "At protel, we never lose sight of the most important purpose of our software: to optimise our customers' workflows and thus improve their operational effectiveness. We are pleased that with Bookassist we have found yet another partner who shares our goal and are looking forward to further successful cooperations."

protel is now the leading PMS vendor seamlessly connected with Bookassist's hotel booking engine via the XML Connector technology. Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks regarding market-leading vendors connecting to XML Connector.


Bookassist® creates and manages successful and proven online strategies for over 2000 hotels and groups worldwide 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.

protel develops and sells technology and service solutions specifically and exclusively for the hotel industry and related companies. The consistent focus on the needs of this industry makes protel one of the most experienced and successful providers of professional hotel management systems. From the small individual hotel to multi-national hotel groups - the product lines of protel hotelsoftware GmbH provide all segments with standard software solutions that can be individually customized to meet any need. The company's headquarters is located in Dortmund, Germany. Cooperating with a dense network of international business partners and operating a branch in Dubai, protel is represented worldwide.

See also "Neue protel ISD connect Schnittstelle mit Bookassist (Deutsch)" and "protel und Bookassist streamline online business for hotels (English)"

Starlight Hotels Group moves to Bookassist for Online Reservations and Strategy

Vienna-based Starlight Suites (starlighthotels.com) has announced a partnership agreement with Bookassist to avail of the company's online strategy services and products.

The Starlight Suites Hotels is a modern and high class hotel group with six 4 star suites-only hotels; three in Austria, two in Budapest, Hungary and one in Bucharest, Romania. The properties are strategically well located in the city-centres.

Starlight Suites Hotels are currently using the Bookassist group booking engine system, incorporating search by location and are also availing of Bookassist's Trafficbuilder online strategy services, to increase their online visitors and brand awareness.

"The Starlight Suites Hotels were looking not only for a booking tool, but a strategy which supports their online brand advertising needs and which stands for significantly increasing conversion and return on investment in a transparent way. With Bookassist, they found the perfect partner with strong local presence in Vienna and top-rated support in Austria", according to Gerd Weingrill, Sales Manager Austria. "We are proud to be picked from amongst various high profile competitors."

Mr. Dieter Jöbstl, the CEO of Starlighthotels is "looking forward to a win-win partnership for both" and sees "Direct Online Distribution" as the long-term future model for his services and products.


Pictured at the training session for Starlight Suites are:
[back from left] Mario Clemente (Bookassist Austria, Account Manager) , Gerd Weingrill (Bookassist Austria, Sales Manager) , Robert Jöbstl (Owner) and Dieter Jöbstl (Owner & CEO)
[front from left] Barbara Koller (Manager Starlight Hotel Heumarkt, Vienna) , Manuela Schön (Manager Starlight Hotel Renngasse, Vienna) , Ivana Majstorowic (Manager Starlight Hotel Salzgries, Vienna)


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.