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.

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.

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.

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.

Bookassist brings thousands of customer reviews online

For the online customer bombarded by market speak, nothing is more valuable than genuine comments about or reviews of the hotel or apartment they are trying to book. Comments from objective fellow travellers are what social media is about. For many months prior to launch, Bookassist has been collecting hundreds of reviews a week from Bookassist customers who have stayed at our partner properties, seeking their views on what does and doesn't work for them. Our review system is now online and is rapidly building into a valuable resource to help our customers make the right choices in accommodation.

Unlike other sites where anyone is free to submit a comment, thereby skewing the imparitality of what is written, Bookassist customer comments are strictly limited to customers who have actually used the Bookassist system to make a reservation - the Bookassist team only invites customers to submit their comments after they have completed their stay.

Since the early days of the Softguides online city guides in the mid to late 90's, a Bookassist product, customer comments and feedback on listed hotels and other services has been a key factor in the service offered by Bookassist. Years before the current growth in online review sites, the Softguides sites were displaying feedback on hotels and other services contributed by the public, a feature that is fast become more mainstream now almost a decade later.

Bookassist enhances RSS syndicated feeds of best deals to include all Bookassist locations

Bookassist is now providing entended XML/RSS feeds of the best deals throughout all Bookassist destinations.

Commenting on the latest release, Bookassist Director Dr Robert Whittle said: "Beginning February 1st, each Bookassist destination now has a series of dedicated XML/RSS feeds for each category of accommodation - hotel starred accommodation, apartments, guesthouses, townhouses etc that users can subscribe to. The XML data describing the cheapest deals to be had in each destination over the following two weeks is updated at least once a day, sometimes more often as hotels change their rates through the live administration system. This is just a beginning though, we plan further 'themes' in the near future, expanding the data from the 'cheapest deals' theme."

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. It is a form of web publishing that allows you to subscribe to an XML formatted "feed" containing the content you want. Once subscribed, all of the content related to that topic will be delivered directly to your newsreader when it changes. It will update automatically when new news arrives without you having to constantly re-check the site. It takes the hassle out of staying up-to-date and is the ideal method of delivery for up to the minute special offers and deals such as those offered by boookassist.

Bookassist supplies booking and call centre technology to Hotel Points loyalty scheme

Bookassist are providing the online booking technology behind the newly-launched HOTELPOINTS promotion. Partnering with incentive company Win|Win who operate HotelPoints, the promotion has now launched around Ireland offering exclusive special discount accommodation and holiday packages for the low season through business loyalty schemes.

HotelPoints is the leading UK & Irish hotel promotions specialist, promoting value hotel breaks in the knowledge that hotel promotions are more successful than any other form of travel & leisure promotion.

HotelPoints have relationships with over 1,000 hotels in Ireland & the UK and over 25,000 hotels worldwide and are responsible for over €100 million in worldwide hotel sales and therefore large discounts have been negotiated with the participating hotels. It is because of these large discounts that HotelPoints are positioned to run successful hotel promotions for their clients.

Retailers DID Electrical and Shaws Department Stores are the first HotelPoints clients to offer their customers this great value loyalty deal and others are lining up to be a part of this new incentive programme. Bookers make their reservations through a private web-site or use a special call centre service. "Both online and call-centre avenues are powered by the Bookassist system and we are confident of our ability to handle high volume as required by HotelPoints", said Mary Collins, Bookassist Web Presence Team Leader. "We look forward to HotelPoints's early expansion of the incentive scheme to other business clients keen to offer loyalty schemes to their customers".

Bookassist touchscreen system to launch at Dublin Airport

Bookassist is the exclusive supplier of the touchscreen booking technology and reservations content for Dublin Tourism's new touchscreen information services at Dublin Airport.

Bookassist will make extensive use of its last-minute booking capability to allow arriving passengers to book from a range of accommodation, both in Dublin and throughout Ireland, for arrival up to midnight on the booking date. According to Kieran Fives, Bookassist Co-Founder and Director, "the system incorporates a number of industry-first features such as SMS text confirmation of bookings for touchscreen users and travel directions delivered directly to the user's phone. Touchscreen users making last minute bookings wouldn't usually be able to print their confirmation details, so the SMS capability is a significant advantage of the Bookassist system".

Bookassist launches industry first eVouchers: buy online and redeem online

In an industry first, Bookassist has launched an entirely electronic voucher system to allow customers to buy, deliver and redeem vouchers online.

The eVoucher concept is simple - buy an eVoucher gift online for someone, have it electronically delivered to them by email, and let them redeem their eVoucher online while booking in their own time. "By redeeming online, the eVoucher concept removes the administration for hotels in dealing with vouchers, and eliminates the worry some customers would have of turning up with a voucher printout. It's just more convenient and secure all round", says Dr Des O'Mahony, bookassist Managing Director.

eVouchers are available now for the Christmas and New Year market and are backed by a national media campaign as well as online promotion.