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.

Cristal Hotels Group Portugal moves to Bookassist strategy & technology

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

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

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

Client business shows rapid rise with Bookassist

Bookassist clients continue to show clear and industry-beating increases in booking numbers, with some of the latest clients to join Bookassist registering up to 70% increase compared to their previous strategy partner's results.

Again and again, Bookassist clients who are availing of the company's strategic advice, online technology and marketing expertise see growth and real return on investment. "Bookassist 'Five Star' functionality", as one 5-star client The Kingsley Hotel points out, has helped drive an increase in traffic and conversion, while Bookassist support staff who are, to quote the Talbot Group, "passionate and enthusiastic about their work and provide an excellent support network" make all the difference in delivering key strategies and in continuing to drive those strategies.

Read more about what Bookassist partner hotels and groups have to say on the Bookassist Testimonials page.

Sat-Nav equipped with Bookassist, putting Irish hotels on the map for drivers

Details of over 600 Bookassist hotels in Ireland are now available on sat-nav in partnership with MyPOIs.ie

Bookassist and My Points of Interest (myPOIs.ie) today announced the availability of the Bookassist Hotel Guide for Ireland and Northern Ireland for Garmin sat-nav users. Users are now able to download for free the Bookassist hotel inventory for Ireland, complete with contact details and links for further information or booking. Hotel bookers who have used the Bookassist system on bookassist.com or directly on one of hundreds of hotel websites in Ireland will also receive, in their booking confirmation, information on how to download sat-nav data should they need assistance in locating their hotel on the road.

"It's all about giving the best service we can to the customer. Our customer feedback has indicated that this is something people would appreciate, particularly those who came from abroad and hadn't anticipated the poor level of road signage of the beaten path in Ireland!", said Christina Roche, Business Development Advisor for Bookassist in Ireland. "The myPOIs site makes it simple for people to tap into the large database we have of accommodation country-wide".

myPOIs.ie collects varied points of interest information nationally and makes it available for download to sat-navs from their web site. So far myPOIs.ie have collected 35,000 additional POIs which are continuously updated, with plans for a further 50,000-100,000 POIs. All listed POIs have proper verified and accurate locations using the latest geocoding techniques.

Bookassist is the market leading Irish company for web-enabled hotel reservations and online marketing. An Irish Internet Association NetVisionary Award winner for online trade, Bookassist has twice been a Top 10 company in Deloitte's Fast 50 fastest growing companies. Bookassist has its headquarters in Ireland with offices in Spain, Scotland, France, Italy, Czech Republic and Poland.

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.

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.

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

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 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