Bookassist Company News

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

2010-01-20T08:00:00.008Z

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

2010-01-07T11:30:00.003Z

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

2010-01-04T12:02:00.002Z

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.

Cristal Hotels Group Portugal moves to Bookassist strategy & technology

2009-12-30T10:00:00.002Z

Bookassist's Madrid office announces the signing of Portugal's Cristal Hotel Group to the Bookassist platform.

The Cristal Hotel Group (www.hotelscristal.com) is a diversified group of 4 and 3 star hotels. The properties are strategically located in the centre of Portugal – Vieira Beach, Marinha Grande and Caldas da Rainha, all properties approximately equidistant from the primary cities of Lisbon and Oporto.

Cristal Hotel Group is currently using the Bookassist group booking engine system, incorporating search by hotel or search by location. The Group has also implemented into its official site the dynamic visual search or "book by map" service from Bookassist so users may view in one step the exact location of all hotels together with live price and availability for each property.

"Cristal Hotel Group needed a solution to empower their own website and build their own brand online. With Bookassist, they recognised the perfect tool for building revenue on their site and for significantly increasing both conversion and return on investment in a transparent way" according to Ismael García-Ortega, Senior Sales Manager for Bookassist in Spain and Portugal.

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.

Bewley's Hotels show dramatic business increase with Bookassist

2009-12-17T10:41:00.010Z

The Bewley's Hotels Group (bewleyshotels.com) has recorded a sharp increase in direct online booking revenue in the final quarter of 2009, the group announced today. The change has coincided with the group's adoption of Bookassist booking technology and online marketing strategy in October 2009.

Commenting on the results to date, Tracey Moran, Communications Director with Bewley's Hotel Group said: "We began working with Bookassist in October and in this short space of time have seen immediate growth in online revenue and particularly in average booking value. Furthermore, introducing Bookassist's eCommerce integration with Google Analytics has helped us to reduce our online marketing costs and to achieve a significantly better return on investment. Although it is still early days we are delighted with the progress and the speed at which it was achieved."

"Switching Bewley's to Bookassist's suite of technology and services has shown immediate dividends", according to Paul Dooley, Director of Client Services at Bookassist's Ireland office. "Our booking technology in particular has one of the highest conversion rates in the industry. We expect further performance growth through 2010 and we are confident that some of our exciting new technology releases in the first quarter of 2010 will accelerate this."

Bookassist products and services in use with the group include Booking Engine, with visual search and interactive booking map technology; Traffic Builder online marketing with Google Analytics eCommerce connectivity; Site Builder content management system website; Corporate booking and loyalty system; online electronic voucher purchase system.

Installation of a direct connection between Bookassist's booking engine system and the hotel group's property management system (PMS) was also facilitated. Bookassist's standard OTA/XML interface allows connections to PMS systems with ease, saving hotels the time and effort of transferring reservations between systems.

Bewley's Hotel Group have four hotels in Dublin - at Ballsbridge, Leopardstown, Newland's Cross and Dublin Airport - together with UK hotels at Manchester Airport and in Leeds. The Group, headquartered at the Red Cow Complex in Dublin, is a sister group of Moran Hotels.

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.

CPI Hotels Czech Republic moves to Bookassist

2009-12-11T15:51:00.006Z

Bookassist announces that Czech Republic hotel group CPI Hotels has signed to Bookassist for online strategy services and booking technology. The agreement also includes Bookassist's Site Builder content management technology for 13 websites.

CPI Hotels currently has 12 properties and operates the Clarion and Fortuna brands in the Czech Republic, as well as the flagship Buddha Bar 5 star Hotel in Prague.

Speaking about this latest acquisition, Jaromir Pazout, Director of Operations in Bookassist's Prague office said: "CPI required comprehensive online booking technology that can display the entire group of hotels together in easy-to-book format, but also be flexible enough to deal with a range from 5 star to long-term apartment sales. Bookassist is that solution. The ease of management of the system, with comprehensive reporting, as well as Bookassist's strategic vision for the online marketplace represented the best solution for CPI Hotels and we are very happy to be their online strategic partner for the coming years".

Apart from booking engine technology, CPI Hotels will also avail of Bookassist's other core products such as Site Builder web development content management system, Traffic Builder online marketing service and tracking technology, and Corporate and Loyalty systems as part of the hotel booking engine suite.

The partnership with CPI Hotels follows Bookassist's recent group agreements such as the Austrian ARCOTEL Hotels Group, Dublin-based Bewleys Hotel Group, Portuguese and Brazilian Eurosol Group and the Spanish Citymar Hotel group.

"This latest success with CPI Hotels underlines the fact that our strategy for online growth is working for hotels and is increasingly valued by them. We continue to push strongly into multiple markets and have rapidly expanded our staffing, our client base and our revenue through 2009 despite the downturn that many experienced in our industry. We are well poised for acceleration through 2010", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO and Founder.

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.

Hotel Hastal Prague gets best online performance award for second year

2009-12-09T11:20:00.005Z

Hotel Hastal Prague Old Town (www.hotelhastalprague.com), has been working with Bookassist for almost 2 years. During this period the number of reservations made on the website has increased by 70% and shows consistent growth. Hotel Hastal has again been awarded the Best-Selling Independent Hotel in the Czech Republic for 2009, having previously won the award also for 2008.

Our congratulations to Patrick and Kristian for their success in working with Bookassist on best online strategies.

From left to right:
Des O'Mahony & Yahya Fetchati of Bookassist; Patrick Rieger, Hotel Hastal; Jaroslav Tibitanzl, Bookassist; Kristian Hanslik, Hotel Hastal; Jaromir Pazout, Bookassist.

Bookassist congratulates Karma Enduro charity trek!

2009-12-07T12:00:00.000Z

Bookassist congratulates the Karma Enduro team for completing their trek! Imogen Murphy and Caroline Malone were the sole Irish team taking part in the 14-day charity car rally through Southern India to raise money for two fantastic children’s charities, Unicef and Rainbow Trust. Bookassist sponsored the team's car and has followed the progress through November.

For a diary of the event, see http://karmaenduro.weebly.com/blog.html

Bookassist appoints new regional Account Manager in Madrid office

2009-12-02T10:00:00.004Z

Bookassist welcomes Carmen Lorenzo as the latest addition to the Spain and Portugal team at Bookassist's Madrid office. Carmen takes over direct online strategy management for a wide part of the company's customers across Spain and Portugal, working directly with them to increase conversion and online revenue.

Carmen's background is in the world of tourism and she brings expertise in customer service to the company. She has previously been involved in management and sales support for hotels with online company Restel and, more recently, with Tradyso.

IHI Founders' Banquet and Awards

2009-11-27T14:00:00.001Z

Bookassist clients featured prominently at the Irish Hospitality Institute's Founders' Banquet & Hospitality Awards 2009 which were held on 26th November at the Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin.

From Left to Right: James Lenehan, Managing Director Win|Win Hotelpoints; Kieran Fives, Director of Sales, Bookassist; Fiona Cassidy and Martin Cassidy, Cassidy's Hotel; Róisín Wallace, Manor House Hotels; Paul Dooley, Director of Client Services, Bookassist; Sarah Collins, Sales Manager, Bookassist; John Loughran, Mount Herbert Hotel.

See www.ihi.ie/ for more details and coverage.

Paris Seminar urges hotels to prepare for economic upturn

2009-11-27T12:03:00.011Z

Bookassist has told French hotels that preparing now for the economic upturn is vital to ensure that they are not left behind. While the hotel industry is advancing through its economic cycle, not all hotels can expect to rise with the inevitable upswing unless they embrace current technologies and techniques.

Click for Seminar Slideshow

In a comprehensive seminar held in the magnificent surroundings of the Irish Embassy on Avenue Foch in Paris on Thursday November 26th, hotels were urged to consider the lifetime value of a customer to their business, not just the single first booking, and to engage with their clients continually through high level offline and online service. Bookassist speakers covered all aspects of online optimisation and marketing for client retention, while co-host Hoosta discussed the importance of social media for hotels doing business online.

The Enterprise Ireland and Irish Embassy supported seminar attracted over 60 hoteliers to hear presentations by Bookassist CEO and Founder Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist's Director of Business & Operations Yahya Fetchati, and co-host and Bookassist Partner Orso Filippi, Chairman of Hoosta (hoosta.com), who specialises in Social Media usage for hotels.

The seminar was opened by His Excellency Ambassador Paul Kavanagh, Irish Ambassador to France and was organised in conjunction with Ms Karen Hallez, Market Advisor for Software Services & Emerging Sectors at Enterprise Ireland's Paris office and the Enterprise Ireland team in Paris.

See also http://hoosta-webagency.com/?p=126

Bookassist appoints new Austria and Germany region account manager

2009-11-13T13:49:00.005Z

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

2009-11-09T09:30:00.005Z

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 Rome.

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 Rome.

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

Bookassist appoints Account Manager for Catalunya

2009-11-04T16:23:00.006Z

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

2009-10-29T12:54:00.005Z

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

2009-10-29T10:00:00.002Z

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

2009-10-28T09:00:00.001Z

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

2009-10-27T20:20:00.008Z

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...

2009-10-23T14:44:00.004+01:00

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

2009-10-09T10:10:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-06T16:44:00.005+01:00

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

2009-09-30T12:00:00.003+01:00

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

2009-09-21T09:20:00.004+01:00

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

2009-08-26T09:00:00.007+01:00

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

2009-08-19T14:39:00.014+01:00

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 Account Management area.