Bookassist reservations can now be transferred to TripIt

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.

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.

Bookassist systems achieve full PCI DSS Compliance

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

New Loyalty System from Bookassist allows hotels to boost return business and build brand recognition

Bookassist (Bookassist.org) has announced the addition of a major new service to its existing product portfolio. Bookassist's breakthrough Loyalty System offers hotels the opportunity to build loyalty in their customer base through the award of free stays for corporate booking agents or for regular agency bookers. Rewarding regular customers is a key approach to brand building and can now be done via online as well as offline bookings through Bookassist's new system.



"As hotel marketing executives know, getting return custom is a far more efficient way of generating business than chasing new custom. Bookassist's completely automated Loyalty System can be customised by hotels to create their own particular incentive, reward or loyalty scheme whether they're a large hotel chain or a small individual hotel", said Bookassist CEO, Dr Des O'Mahony. "Loyalty programs are a major part of brand building also for hotels, though many hotels have not had affordable technology to implement their own automated scheme until now".

Hotels can choose to award points to corporate clients, to events bookers or to agency bookers, with points earned for each booking. Hotels can top-up bookers with extra points if they wish and choose to show them preferential discounted rates also when they book online. Customers can manage their loyalty scheme membership, can track their bookings and their points as they accumulate and use them, and can choose to redeem points against bookings once thresholds set by the hotel are reached, all within a private management area.

For hotel groups, the system can allow bookers to accumulate points from any stay in a group hotel and redeem them in any other group hotel. This is a significant advantage for hotel groups in cross-promotion and cross-selling and can be extended to virtual marketing groups also.

The Bookassist Loyalty System is available now as a service to all hotels using the market leading Bookassist Booking Engine and Bookassist Corporate System.

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.

Corporate booking system from Bookassist receives major upgrade

The new Corporate System from Bookassist (Bookassist.org) is a significant upgrade to Bookassist's extended Booking Engine functionality and original corporate system for hotels. Corporate System allows hotels to manage and offer special private rates to travel agents and corporate booking agents to help build brand loyalty and return custom. Hotel groups can also use Corporate to offer preferential rates across all hotels in a group.



The new 2009 Corporate System allows hotels to offer private logins to online agents to access their customised management areas where they can view and search their booking history, alter or cancel bookings, and avail of other advanced features to help streamline their management of bookings. Corporate System also provides the framework for Bookassist's new Loyalty System, where hotels and groups can automate the management of rewards and incentives for agents. Agents can view, manage and redeem loyalty points incentives within their customised management areas.

Corporate System is a free upgrade for hotels using the existing corporate system and is available now for all hotel an hotel group clients.

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.

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.

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.

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 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".