Scottish Inns Online!

Online reservations has been seen by too many as the preserve of large hotels and groups. Well with Bookassist that just ain't the case. In Scotland some of the most successful partnerships have been with smaller independatly run inns offering personalised styles of accommodation and service.

The Drovers Inn on the West Highland Way just north of Loch Lomond is perhaps the finest example of a small property able to maximise its room revenues using Bookassist. It's now been onlien for more than three years and continues its staggering growth.

The Inn at Lathones near St Andrews is another prime example of a rpivately operated former coaching house using online reservations to its full and now tying it in with Web 2.0 tools including an innkeepers blog and YouTube video footage.

In the Highlands just outside Inverness Graham Cross at The Old North Inn has been using Bookassist to drive his website for a couple of years as well.

So with our portfolio of Inns oncreasing all the time we're delighted to welcome The Galley of Lorne in Ardfern in Argyll on board. The Galley of Lorne Inn is a 17th Century Drover's Inn and country retreat situated in the picturesque village of Ardfern which nestles among the hills beside Loch Craignish. This beautiful corner of Argyll has long been a favourite for yachtsmen, artists and those who appreciate beauty, wildness plus the good things in life - and now it's bookable online using Bookassist.

If you're wanting to know how your property can benefit from online reservations with Bookassist give James a call on 01292 521404 or email scotland@bookasssist.com for your information pack.

Fife Country House Hotel Joins Bookassist

Well known Kirkcaldy country house hotel, Dunnikier House Hotel, has this week gone live with Bookassist and has signed up to use both its Sitebuilder and TrafficBuilder products.

The Fife hotel which is well known locally for business and weddings markets was recently taken over by Stewart Dykes who also owns the Crusoe Hotel in Lower Largo on the East Neuk of Fife and is benefitting in a series of upgrades to both the property and the marketing activity.

We sat down with Stewart and identified what was required of the new site and the need to start ensuring that the hotel website was used more effectively to market business and leisure stays.
The new site has been completely redesign using Bookassist's Sitebuilder Pro and gives the hotel marketing and reservations team complete control over content, images and even a series of web 2.0 tools including a new blog.

The Bookassist booking engine is integral to the site and offers the reservations team control over availability and rate management that they've never previously had with other booking systems. And from the guest point of view they can now be assured that if the visit the Dunnikier House Hotel website they will receive Best Available Rate - guaranteed!

The hotel is taking advantage of tools such as Google Picasa Gallery which only enhances the website experience. It is also using the Bookassist Trafficbuilder programme to enhance its visibility on the search engines. This includes working with the account management team at Bookassist to make sure that search terms are appropriate, Google Adwords campaigns managed appropriately and optimisation stays high priority.

Ian McCaig from Bookassist office in Scotland was delighted to be working even more closely with the hotel, "The new website is a great example of what can be incorporated into a Web 2.0 hotel site and how Bookassist technology can become the driver for hotels' online marketing activities. Increasingly we are seeing independant hotels the leghth and breadth of Scotland recognising the benefits of not only having a booking engine on their site but having a booking engine that has strong marketing support working alongside it. Bookassist provides this partnership support and in the current economic climate it is being seen as a major benefit by our accommodation partners."

Tartan Army Select Bookassist

As the national team prepare for a crucial World Cup Qualifier with Norway at Hampden this weekend, Bookassist have come off the bench to provide the Tartan Army website with their own booking engine.


TartanArmy.com is now featuring availabiltiy across the whole of Scotland to visitors to their site and it gives accommodation providers the opportunity in these difficult times to target their local market for short breaks.


Ian McCaig from Bookassist's Scotland office was delighted that The Tartan Army site was live, "Bookassist is the best solution for accommodation providers looknig to get their own rooms online on their own website with competitive commission rates and easy to manage rates and availability. However it is also a superbly powerful tool for niche distributino channels such as TartanArmy.com and is perfect for organisations promoting date or area specific events. We are indeed talking to another couple of football and sports related websites and hope that these will also be going live in the coming weeks.
Don Lawson, Director of Tartan Army Ltd, was delighted to have sign up to the Bookassist team, "The integration of the technology was painless and doesn't affect the look or feel of our site at all and in the future this will give us the opportunity to sell accoommodation offers with selected hotel partners for major matches. In addition it offers our site visitors the chance to just book a short break at any time of the year. We're delighted to have Bookassist on our site."
You can check out Bookassist now at http://www.tartanarmy.com/

Scottish Team at World Travel Market

With just over a month to World Travel Market we're delighted to confirm that the Scotland Office will be represented over the complete event.

The event which is this year taking place between the 10th and the 13th of November at London's Excel is going to be doing business under the shadow of seriously testing world tourism market conditions.

For the accommodation provider the market is going to test the mettle of everyone from guest house to largest group. At Bookassist our focus on technology that works is combined with an understanding that, more than ever, our hotels, guest houses, self catering properties and even DMO's are our partners.

Our commitment to working with our partners in the next year can lead to establishing best practice in a host of areas; our Booking Engine offers multiple langauges and currencies, easy to manage administration, totally flexible room and rate management to react to markets easily; our Trafficbuilder programmes will help you with gettting visitors to the site with PPC management, search engine optimisation and implementation of Web 2.0 tools. We can even offer state of the art web development with our brand new suite of Sitebuilder products designed with the Scottish market in mind.

So whatever the markets may throw at us all in 2009, you can be assured that the Bookassist team will be standing with you through it ensuring that your online business can continue to develop, can continue to reduce costs and can continue to drive new revenues.

If your an accommodation provider, hotel group or destination management organisation in Scotlan and wish to discuss your online market development opportunites drop us an email to scotland@bookassist.com - Ian McCaig will be on the stand on Monday and Tuesday and James Kennedy on Wednesday and Thursday.

Golf Channelbuilder Tees Off in Scotland

Bookassist's team in Scotland have added a new club to their bag with the launch of Golf Channelbuilder on the website of 2009 Open Championship Qualifying course Kilmarnock Barassie Golf Club.

The club which lies in the midst of Ayrshire's golfing links coast has added an availability checker to its website allowing site visitors and potential golf tourists the chance to not only check their golf but also reserve their accommodation.

Ian McCaig of Bookassist's Scottish office was delighted at the latest development, "Golf tourism is such an important part of the tourism mix in places like Ayrshire, East Lothian, Fife and The HIghlands and this recognises the potential golf courses have for converting on line enquiries to online bookings for accommodation providers."

The Barassie website offers a wide selection of accommodation from five star to self catering and small B&B's and is the first of many.

"We're already working on embedding the booking engine into a few more of Scotland's most famous courses. It really brings together the golf course with the accommodation provider and offers genuine joint marketing opportunities. Our aim would be to work with golf courses throughout the country in making sure that their website offers the visitor the very best availability and rates in their area."

Any golf course or accommodation provider looking for more information on how Bookassist online booking enginen benefit their business should contact the Scottish office of Bookassist on 02192 521404 or email scotland@bookassist.com
You can view the system at http://www.kbgc.co.uk/