Bookassist and ARCOTEL Hotels both nominated for prestigious EyeforTravel Mobile Innovation Awards

Bookassist has yet again been nominated for a prestigious mobile award for its innovative webapp platform for hotels, and this time also nominated is Bookassist client ARCOTEL Hotels (arcotelhotels.com) in a separate category!

The EyeforTravel Mobile Innovation in Travel Awards 2013 are among Europe's premier awards in travel, and winners are to be announced at the EyeforTravel Travel Distribution Summit in London on May 23-24.

Vote NOW for Bookassist (Best Mobile Solution Category)
and ARCOTEL Hotels (Best Mobile Website Category) at:
http://events.eyefortravel.com/travel-distribution-summit-europe/awards-voting.php

Bookassist client ARCOTEL Hotel group is nominated for its mobile website in the hotly-contested Best Mobile Website category. The category seeks to reward the company that best serves its mobile customers. The ARCOTEL Hotel group solution on mobile, using the Bookassist webapp platform for hotels,gives ARCOTEL's mobile customers full booking, photo galleries, special offers, location and directions and social media all at their fingertips on the go.

You can check out the ARCOTEL solution right here:

ARCOTEL Hotel Group Austria & Germany

At Bookassist, we've already got hundreds of hotels already using our mobile webapp solution, with revenue on mobile showing consistent growth. You can read more about Bookassist's market-leading solution for hotels here: http://www.bookassist.org/mobile_app.jsp

You can also check out another example of Bookassist's mobile solution for hotels using the QR code below.

Hotel Paris Prague

Bookassist takes Runner Up spot in EyeforTravel Mobile Awards

San Francisco, March 18th, 2013

Following quickly from Bookassist's recent win for Booking Technology in the 2012 World Travel Awards, the company finished second in the Best Mobile Technology Solutions category at the EyeforTravel Mobile Innovation In Travel Awards 2013, held in San Francisco on March 18th. The overall award went to Tripcase.

This is the second year that EyeforTravel has run its annual Mobile Innovation in Travel Awards to reward those brands which are investing intelligently in mobile right now, thereby paving the way for the rest of the industry to follow.

“The recognition we have received on the world stage for our extremely successful hotel webapp platform in testament to the vision and resources we have invested in driving mobile innovation in the hotel Industry” says Dr Des OMahony, Bookassist CEO and Founder.

Hundreds of hotels already use Bookassist's mobile webapp solution (http://bookassist.org/mobile), and thousands of hotel customers have generated almost $2M in mobile bookings on the platform since the launch of Version 2 of the platform in early 2012.

"There are lots of approaches to smartphone hotel business, such as generating native apps, having responsive web design or having specialised webapps", explained O'Mahony,  "We did real analytics on thousands of hotel customers visiting regular hotel websites on their mobile devices in order to see how best to solve the problem."

What Bookassist found was that the majority of people reach hotels via search, so some form of web-based solution that was instantly accessible from search results listings was clearly superior to a native app. 

Interestingly the data also showed that scaling down a hotel website to give the same information but for smaller screens, so called responsive design, was also not the ideal solution. 

"People do different things on mobile compared to what they do on the desktop, and our data shows they clearly have different priorities. So we built a separate web platform for hotels on mobile that exactly met those customer priorities", said O'Mahony. "We continue to monitor the usage and adjust and improve the platform as the industry changes."

Bookassist Mobile Webapp for hotels offers mapping and geolocation routing, full screen photo galleries, integrated Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and social media platforms, dynamic special offers, full booking capability, multiple languages and more. It is available to any hotel or hotel group that uses the Bookassist Booking Engine.

Here's a brief promo video of Bookassist's mobile webapp solution for hotels. You can read more online at http://bookassist.org/mobile

About Bookassist (www.bookassist.com)

Bookassist® is the industry-leading booking engine and online marketing provider for hotels in Europe with thousands of hotels using Bookassist services. Bookassist partners with hotels to create and manage consistently successful online strategies and develops world-class booking and distribution software to ensure hotels drive more direct bookings and increase direct revenue. Bookassist was voted the World’s Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider at the 2012 World Travel Awards. Headquartered in Dublin, the company was founded in 1999 and has offices in Madrid, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Prague and Munich with partners in USA, UK and the Middle East.

For Press information contact:

Claire Sawier

pr@bookassist.com 

+353 1 676 2913

Tourism Minister on hand for Bookassist Launch

Irish Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar met with the Bookassist team at ITB Berlin on March 6th to mark both the launch of Bookassist's new Distribution Manager platform (http://bookassist.org/distributionmanager) and the company's recent win of World's Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider title at the World Travel awards.

Minister Leo Varadkar with Bookassist's Des O'Mahony CEO, 

Robert Whittle CTO and Yahya Fetchati COO

Mary Collins Head of Internet Marketing, Minister Leo Varadkar, Des O'Mahony CEO,
Robert Whittle CTO and Yahya Fetchati COO

Bookassist Launches Margin-Focused Distribution Manager For Hotels

Berlin, Germany, March 6th, 2013

International travel technology and online strategy company Bookassist (bookassist.org) announced the arrival of its revolutionary distribution manager software at ITB Berlin today.

Built entirely in-house, Bookassist Distribution Manager (bookassist.org/distributionmanager.jsp) offers a hotel-centric solution to online distribution allowing hoteliers to strategically address the issue of margin through its intelligent redistribution capability.

Traditional channel manager software offers hoteliers the much-needed convenience of dealing with multiple channels from one easy to use interface. But typically these channel managers are agnostic and don’t care where a hotel sells. They are just software tools built to make distribution more convenient without any regard for margin.

“Focusing on revenue at the expense of margin makes no sense” insists Bookassist CEO Dr Des O’Mahony. “We are absolutely focused on the issue of optimising margins for hotels and everything we do supports this objective.”

The focus on optimising margin is what puts Bookassist Distribution Manager firmly on the side of the hotelier. It’s a strategy tool and not just a convenient interface to manage online distribution.

Bookassist has a long history of optimising direct online business for hotels. Named the World’s Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider at the recent World Travel Awards the company has proven its worth in the online direct business. “Everything we do is with the aim of optimising direct bookings for our clients. This is the channel that offers the highest margin and the best opportunity for customer loyalty.”

“Our account managers work to continually raise the performance of online business for our hotels resulting in some clients achieving direct figures in excess of 70% of their total online business”, explains O'Mahony.

Intelligent availability across all channels ensures that you can easily manage your exposure on each online channel individually rather than lumping it all into one basket where margin control is lost. Bookassist’s margin strategy capability automatically redistributes availability every time a booking is received shutting down less important, often low margin channels and increasingly favoring your higher margin primary channels as availability gets tighter. You can ensure that last room availability will always be where it should be - on your own website where margin is highest.

“Our system will do this redistribution automatically for you so that even if your availability is changing very quickly you’re not going to miss out on valuable margin just because you didn’t have time to log in” says O’Mahony.

The two-way Bookassist Distribution Manager connects to all major distribution channels (own website booking engine, GDS, Booking.com, Expedia etc) and gives hotels direct control of their availability and rates in one powerfully simple interface.

Maintaining rate parity is simple using intuitive linked rates functionality. You can even manage your entire distribution of countless rate plans across countless channels with just one single master rate.

Critically, you don't have to dumb down your booking engine set up to suit Bookassist’s Distribution Manager as you have to do with most channel managers. You can import your entire booking engine setup however complex.

Bookassist has considerable plans for the new platform with lots more intelligence being built into it. “Watch this space” says O’Mahony!

Bookassist Distribution Manager is available now, commission free at a fixed annual price. Price depends on number of rooms in hotel and number of channels required.

For further information see: http://www.bookassist.org/distributionmanager.jsp

Example of Bookassist Distribution Manager Availabilities control screen (click image for larger view).
(a) The user’s login area, system alerts, progress of events and help. (b) Convenient tabs for channels, rate plans and availabilities are visible on all pages and slide out for quick configuration checks. (c) Quick date selectors for one week, two weeks, one month or by date. (d) Data previously sent to any channel by the system can be reloaded, or data currently on the booking engine can be loaded for convenience. (e) Availabilities are calculated by rule from master availability in the “Available” line, but the rule can be manually overwritten at any time.

Here's a brief promo video of the concept of redistribution:




About Bookassist (bookassist.org)
Bookassist® is the industry-leading booking engine and online marketing provider for hotels in Europe with thousands of hotels using Bookassist services. Bookassist partners with hotels to create and manage consistently successful online strategies and develops world-class booking and distribution software to ensure hotels drive more direct bookings and increase direct revenue. Bookassist was voted the World’s Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider at the 2012 World Travel Awards.
Headquartered in Dublin, the company was founded in 1999 and has offices in Madrid, Paris, Italy, Rome, Vienna, Prague and Munich with partners in USA, UK and the Middle East.


For Press information contact:
Claire Sawier
marketing@bookassist.com
+353 1 676 2913

Irish Times Interview

Interview with Bookassist CEO in the Irish Times, February 20, 2013.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0220/1224330266155.html

Vote Bookassist for Best Mobile Tech Solution at Eyefortravel

VOTE NOW FOR BOOKASSIST in the Best Mobile Tech Solution category of the Eyefortravel Mobile Strategies for Travel Awards 2013.

We've got hundreds of hotels already using our mobile webapp solution, with revenue on mobile showing consistent growth.

Vote for Bookassist at:
http://events.eyefortravel.com/mobile/voting.php


Read more about the Bookassist webapp solution here:
http://www.bookassist.org/mobile_app.jsp

or point your QR reader at some of these examples below and try it for yourself:

ARCOTEL Hotel Group Austria & Germany

Hotel Paris Prague

Bookassist Talks 'Redistribution' at ITB Berlin on March 6th

New Product Launch

The World's Leading Booking Technology Provider, Bookassist, will have a major new product launch at the ITB travel fair in Berlin on March 6th next.

"2013 is a turning point for Bookassist", according to CEO Dr Des O'Mahony. "We started the year as a world leader in booking technology, and now we are building on that with the launch of our new Bookassist Distribution Manager at ITB, a major new platform for the company to build on for the future".


Intelligent and dynamic redistribution is the key

ITB sees the first public outing of the new Bookassist Distribution Manager. Built from the ground up by Bookassist, the technology will go far beyond basic channel management. The system has been in beta testing with a number of hotels in different European markets in recent months.

"Channel managers are popular and useful tools, but their aim is a relatively blunt one. They help the hotel sell anywhere online. Basically, they are agnostic - they don't care where the hotel sells", explains O'Mahony.

"Bookassist Distribution Manager will actively and intelligently help the hotel to get the best margin on what it sells and where, not just distributing to online sales channels and the hotel's website but actively redistributing from one channel to another when demand is recognised, constantly favouring the sale point with the best margin for the hotel. Active redistribution is a concept that Bookassist is introducing to the channel manager space with this platform. And we have a very exciting roadmap for where this platform will go through 2013 and beyond".

Bookassist's long background in direct sale strategy on hotel websites is a distinct advantage in the dynamic redistribution game. The company has continually worked with hotels to favour the direct web channel as the channel of highest margin, while taking advantage of exposure and distribution on third party channels where it is beneficial to do so. Hotels are well aware that Bookassist's approach is to favour the hotel's direct channel over other more costly distribution. This software puts that strategy directly into practice with real benefits to margin.

Bookassist is exhibiting at Hall 8.1 / Stand 108 at Berlin's Messe. To arrange contact with the team, please email ITB@bookassist.com.

Bookassist at ITB Hall 8.1 / Stand 108

About Bookassist 

Bookassist (http://www.bookassist.org) creates and manages consistently successful online strategies for hotels and develops world-class booking and distribution software to ensure hotels drive more direct bookings and increase direct revenue. Bookassist is the industry-leading booking engine and online marketing provider for hotels in Europe with thousands of hotels using Bookassist services.

Bookassist Goes to Hell and Back for its Clients!

Bookassist, the World's Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider took on yet another tough challenge today. Requiring endurance beyond belief, it was a test that tormented the Bookassist team both physically and mentally.

Ireland's toughest 10k Race, "Hell and Back", took place in the 1200 acre Kilruddery Estate in Wicklow against the backdrop of Dublin Bay. The spectacular scenes were not enjoyed by many such was the gruelling nature of the race!

Team Bookassist braved The Pond, Satan's Pit, The Swamp, Shock of Horrors, Barbed Wire Crawl and The River in sub-zero stormy conditions. In a show of utter detmination they waded icy mud through a 30 metre maze of electric shocks, crawled under barbed wire and surmounted 3 metre walls in pursuit of their goal. 

They faced the many challenges and obstacles with total commitment never giving up on each other and never losing sight of their end goal, a true reflection of Bookassist's client focus! They limped across the finishing line, soaking wet, dripping in mud, joints frozen solid - broken but not defeated.

"We made it and we did it together" whispered Bookassist's Christina Roche barely able to speak. 

Could you think of a better team to look after you?

GDS Account Manager Pawel Debakowski and

Search Specialist Bernhard Böhm after the race

Sales Manager John Power and

Senior Key Account Manager Christina Roche

still sparkling clean before the race

For more photos, see facebook.com/Bookassist

Bookassist upgrades its award-winning booking engine

Bookassist has released a major free upgrade to its award-winning booking engine software. Whether your hotel already uses the Bookassist system, or whether you are considering the options in the marketplace, here is just a snippet of the changes and new features to be seen in Bookassist’s latest system upgrade.


Visual redesign and modernisation

Visually, the design of entire display for the booking pages has been significantly improved to give a fresh modern look. The design makes better use of fonts, colour, layout and style improvements to help make the display more appealing and hence improve conversion. Bookassist can control the styling to a much higher degree so that the system blends seamlessly with the individual hotel website.

The new design adds lots of little animations and feedback to the customers' actions, for example smooth opening and closing of information sections etc., all of which give a more dynamic modern feel to the system but also help guide the customers' eye to where it should be looking.

Usability improvements for the online customer

There is a strong emphasis on the customer's focus: because the choice of rooms and packages can be quite extensive in many hotels, you want the customer to be able to focus on exactly what they want and eliminate clutter. In this design when a user is interacting with a particular room, the system "lifts" it off the page with subtle shading so that it stands out more prominently. The customer knows exactly what they are engaging with and user confusion is reduced.

(Click for larger view)

One of the key issues in a booking engine display is being able to quickly scan prices across multiple room types and packages. The new design improves this significantly by altering the color and size of price display per room type for much easier scanning/viewing. Prices are also displayed day-by-day on a calendar-like system so the customer can easily see where pricing might be better.

Speed is also greatly improved. Bookassist now stores your hotel's booking engine images on Amazon cloud servers so that image files are automatically copied to local servers all over the world. The files are "locally" accessible in your customers' country, giving much faster download times for your customer and improved display of photos.


Even Better Dynamic Discounts

A strong market advantage of Bookassist's world-leading technology is the dynamic discounts function. Dynamic discounts automatically calculate new total-stay pricing when certain conditions are met, for example "stay three nights and get the third night for half price" etc. This dynamic discount approach is a serious advantage for your online customer conversion, demonstrating real value on your hotel's website.

This latest Bookassist booking engine upgrade takes this winning concept even further. Using a calendar-like display, the system shows a price range (from - to) on non-stay dates so that the customer is aware that there may be a lower rate achievable. The system also “sells” the discounts by displaying a clear "advertisement" listing the types of dynamic discount that are available if the customer changes their dates.



Built for the Customer

Bookassist uses rigorous A/B testing of its system upgrades to get real-world information on how they perform. In A/B testing, an online customer visiting a hotel is randomly presented with one version (A) or another version (B) of the booking process and over time the statistics gathered on whether A or B is the more successful approach are fed into the ongoing design improvements of the system. This ensures the system is genuinely designed for what the customer wants, not just what Bookassist or the hotel thinks it should have.

Bookassist named World's Leading Booking Technology Provider at World Travel Awards 2012

Dublin, December 13th, 2012.

Bookassist, the online strategy and technology partner for hotels, has won the World's Leading Booking Technology Provider award at the 2012 World Travel Awards (http://www.worldtravelawards.com/). The prestigious prize was presented on December 12th at the 2012 Grand Finale event, which was hosted at The Oberoi, Gurgaon, New Delhi, India. Often referred to as "the Oscars of the travel industry", the awards recognise winners worldwide as setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

It is the third year in a row that Bookassist has been nominated in the category.

Speaking at the ceremony in New Delhi, Bookassist Founder and CEO Dr Des O'Mahony said "We're extremely honoured to have won, it was third time lucky for us. Especially with such distinguished competition in the category such as industry giants like Sabre/SynXis and Amadeus. It's a real stamp of approval from our own industry for what we do."

"To have our client hotels and industry peers vote us into a world-leading position is testament to the hard work and dedication of the Bookassist staff, in all our offices. The award is recognition of the real difference they have made to our clients' business".

Bookassist was founded in Dublin in 1999. Entirely self-financed and privately owned, it has a strong emphasis on research and innovation and has grown to over 70 employees. The company has offices in Madrid, Paris, Italy, Rome, Vienna, Prague and Munich in addition to its headquarters in Dublin.

The company develops advanced booking software that allows hotels to sell directly on their own websites instead of relying solely on online travel agents, who typically charge hotels high commissions. Direct business is a strong growth area for hotels as the industry seeks to improve revenue margins and reduce commission bills.

The company's booking engine software powers thousands of hotel websites and has handled in excess of 120M Euro in direct hotel booking revenue in 2012 for its clients.

Asked why he thought Bookassist won the award, O'Mahony explained: "I believe it's because we deliver for our hotels. We consistently raise their direct business revenue online. We allow them capture more online business at a far lower cost, and therefore higher margin, than any of our competitors. We do this through expert consultancy and best-of-breed technology - and you need both."

“This award also coincides this month with the release of a major upgrade to our hotel website booking software. Even more reason for our hotel clients to be delighted with us”, commented O’Mahony.

March 2013 will be equally exciting with Bookassist’s planned release of version one of its eagerly awaited new distribution management platform to intelligently optimise the way hotels do online business.

The company has previously been ranked in the Deloitte Fast 50 companies in Ireland and in Europe, and O'Mahony has twice been honoured by the Irish Internet Association NetVisionary Awards.

Video: Interview with Des O’Mahony, chief executive and co-founder, Bookassist, at World Travel Awards Grand Final 2012 from Breaking Travel News

About Bookassist

Bookassist (http://www.bookassist.org) creates and manages consistently successful online strategies for hotels and develops world-class booking and distribution software to ensure hotels drive more direct bookings and increase direct revenue. Bookassist is the industry-leading booking engine and online marketing provider for hotels in Europe with thousands of hotels using Bookassist services.


About the World Travel Awards (WTA)

World Travel Awards (http://www.worldtravelawards.com), established in 1993, reward the very best travel organisations worldwide. Nominations are vetted and inspected by a group of industry experts and votes are cast by professionals working within travel and tourism. The voting works on a first-past-the-post system, and votes are submitted online at WTA's website. More than 5000 travel organisations are nominated each year and over three quarters of a million votes are cast. The Grand Finale 2012 event, officially supported by Ministry of Tourism of India, was hosted at The Oberoi, Gurgaon, New Delhi.

Bookassist at Karlovy Vary Regional Tourism Conference 2012

Bookassist presented at the Regional Tourism Conference 2012 for tourism professionals in the Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) Region of the Czech Republic on November 28th: http://konference.zivykraj.cz/

The conference focused on the current state and future potential of regional tourism around the famous spa town. Delegates had the opportunity to meet with the Czech Tourism agency, local tourist centers, the hotels and spa facilities, and companies providing services in the field of online marketing and advertising such as Bookassist. 

Bookassist provides online marketing and technology services to most of the major hotels and spas in Karlovy Vary such as 

• Hotel Imperial - http://www.spa-hotel-imperial.cz
• Spa Resort Sanssouci - http://www.spa-resort-sanssouci.cz
• Grandhotel Pupp - http://www.pupp.cz/
• Hotel Savoy Westend - http://www.savoywestend.cz/
• Hotel Thermal - http://www.thermal.cz
• Carlsbad Plaza 5* Superior - http://www.carlsbad-plaza.com
• Bristol Group - http://www.bristolgroup.cz/
• Humboldt Park Hotel & Spa - http://www.humboldt.cz/
• Salvator Hotel - http://www.salvatorhotel.com/

Pictured is Bookassist's Czech and Slovak Region Operations Manager Jaromir Pažout.

Bookassist Sponsors Italy's Hospitality Social Awards

Bookassist is the headline sponsor of Italy's first Hospitality Social Awards, being announced on November 29th next in Florence, Italy.

http://www.hospitalitysocialawards.it/

Organised by BTO and Teamwork, the awards are for individual hotels, hotel groups/chains and tourist destinations and cover categories such as best use of Facebook, use of Twitter, use of Blogs and many other areas.

Voting in the awards is open to the industry and has attracted many thousands of votes so far. Voting is now closed and the finalist nominees can be found here:
http://www.hospitalitysocialawards.it/vote.html

Best of luck to all, and we'll see you on the 29th!

Bookassist is shortlisted in the 2012 World Travel Awards World's Leading Booking Engine

For the third year in a row, Bookassist has been nominated as the World's Leading Booking Engine Technology provider in the prestigious World Travel Awards, known as the Oscars of the industry! 

The awards will be announced in Delhi on December 12, 2012.

"We're very proud and excited to be in the company of some of the world's leading brands in travel technology, such as Sabre, Amadeus and others. With a bit of luck and the support of our clients, 2012 will be third time lucky for Bookassist in these finals!", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO.

Why Vote For Bookassist?

• Booking Engine Technology success is measured in conversion - Bookassist has consistently delivered better conversion for our hotel clients online.
• For over 12 years, Bookassist has constantly improved its booking technology and related services. We do not stand still, and will again release a major upgrade in December '12.
• We are constantly pushing to improve our technology and service levels and always listen carefully to what our customers have to say.
• We develop winning online strategies for our partner hotels that have delivered improved direct business again and again.
• Our account managers have a personal touch and are committed to strong customer service and delivering real results.
• Our account managers constantly upskill on the latest technology and trends so that they can help our hotel clients stay ahead of the fast moving internet game.
• We have made sure to extend our technology into social and mobile spaces so that we can help our hotels reach their customers where ever they are.
• We believe in what we do, and we are proud that over 3000 hotels and hotel groups around the world believe in us.
• We would really appreciate your support to help us win a World Travel Award!

VOTE NOW!
How To Vote

Voting requires you to register with the World Travel Awards website, but it doesn't take too much effort.

• Go to http://www.worldtravelawards.com/vote
• Click "Register" on the Log In form if you are not registered
• Fill in your details and create a password - if you have an IATA number then please register this in the Travel Industry Voter section of the form as your vote will count for double!
•  You will receive an email to verify your registration
• Once you click the link to verify, you will be taken to the World Travel Awards site - now click the Vote Now blue advert on the right

• Select the Travel Technology region, and scroll down to choose the Worlds Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider category.
• The category will open on the top of the page, so go there and select BOOKASSIST!
• It will automatically update "My Vote Stats" to show a vote

You can continue voting in other categories if you wish, but you don't have to.

Now wasn't that easy?!

Let Us Know You Voted!

If you have voted, please share it and let us know by:

Tweet on Twitter with the tag #bookassistWTA 

http://twitter.com

Join or like our Facebook World Travel Awards Event: 

http://www.facebook.com/events/446787632047068/

Bookassist at BTO - Buy Tourism Online in Italy

Bookassist has a strong presence in the BTO - Buy Tourism Online exhibition and fair at Florence, Italy on November 29 and 30 next.

http://www.buytourismonline.com/

On Thursday at 2pm, Bookassist COO Yahya Fetchati will take part in a panel discussion in disintermediation along with BravoFly, Expedia and Kayak representatives. The theme is:
"For years, there have been forecasts of the reappraising of OLTA and every time we find ourselves reckoning with numbers growing by double digits. But are we sure that tourism operators have found the way to “disintermediate”, or rather do the streams of intermediation change every year?"

On Thursday at 4pm, Jacopo Rita, Bookassist Online Marketing Specialist will present a workshop entitled "Google AdWords - Take back what’s yours!" to help hotels understand the strategic importance of online advertising.

On Friday at 3.10pm, Alberto Recanatesi, Bookassist Operations Manager for Italy and Fiamma Franceschilli, Bookassist Senior Account Manager for Italy will jointly present a workshop entitled "Beyond Technology - The extra added value of account management", which outlines the strategic value and real revenue growth brought to clients by expert account management from Bookassist.

In the closing main session on Friday at 3:45pm to 5.00pm, Bookassist CEO Dr Des O'Mahony will chair the final panel discussion on Mobile technology in the tourism marketplace together with representatives from Eyefortravel, Gogobot, HotelsTonight, Tripadvisor and Yelp.

BTO is Italy's premier online tourism event and Bookassist have been supports and contributors since its inception.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buytourism

Winners of Concours Clients in Equip'Hotel 2012 Paris

CONGRAULATIONS to two excellent Bookassist client hotels in Paris that have scooped the top awards in their categories at Equip'Hotel in Paris. The awards are voted on by the traveling public and are particularly valuable because of that, proving as they do the value of real customer services.

See:
http://www.concoursclients.com/resultats

Bookassist's long-standing client hotel, "Grand Hôtel Français" won the well-deserved Best Hotel de Charme award at Equip'hotel 2012. Proprietor Wally Si Hocine is pictured below left receiving the award.

Bookassist client hotel "Hotel Le Six" scooped, as expected, the award for Best Hotel de Luxe. Pictured below right is proprietor George Bonneau.

  

Bookassist at Equip'Hotel Paris 2012

Bookassist's France team preparing for the Equip'Hotel show in Paris this week. 

Fo some more photographs of the event as it happens, see the following Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151111539331701.428022.27727076700&type=1&l=f27c324149

Bookassist announces cooperation with RussianTraveller.ru & ChineseTraveller.cn

Bookassist, the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider, and Primoco, the publisher of “Russian Traveller” and “Chinese Traveller” lifestyle portals on travel, have announced a new cooperation to increase the visibility of hotels and provide their clients with online booking services aimed at the Russian and Chinese markets. The joint work is particularly important in Bookassist's Czech and Slovak markets where the company is market leader, but has wider implications for operations throughout Europe.

While America and Europe are more and more affected by the economic crisis, Russian and Chinese tourists are increasingly interested in travel. Statistics for the first half of 2012 have shown that the number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad increased by 20% compared to the previous year. It is expected that this year the figure will reach 80 million travellers. Russian travellers are even more active. In the first half of 2012 their number increased by 23%.

According to Jaromír Pažout, the Director of Operations, Bookassist Czech & Slovak Republics, “Hotels must discover new business opportunities and increase their competitiveness especially at the time of crisis. I am glad that we have entered into partnership with the Russian portal on travel, the Russian Traveller.ru”

“I am happy about the strategic partnership with Bookassist. For hotels it will bring a clear opportunity to directly address new markets, to make maximum use of the potential of their hotel websites and the Bookassist reservation system” said Ladislav Semetkovsky, Chief Executive Officer of Primoco Limited.

About RUSSIAN TRAVELLER.RU and CHINESE TRAVELLER.CN

Both portals are among the biggest lifestyle websites focused on world travel combining practical and entertaining features, reports, articles, useful information for travellers, hot news about hundreds of destinations as well as fascinating photos from the most interesting places of the world. And of course, the sites include recommendations for the best hotels in the given area.

www.russiantraveller.ru - contains information on 190 countries, recommendations about 600 destinations, 2,100 articles, 4,800 photographs, 1,500 videos. Monthly visits reach 600,000 unique readers.

www.chinesetraveller.cn - contains information on 150 countries, recommendations about 200 destinations, 1,000 articles, 500 videos. Monthly visits reach 100,000 unique readers.

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is the industry-leading hotel booking engine and online marketing provider in Czech Republic. 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.

Mobile Webapp V2 - Bookassist Announces Major Upgrade to Industry-Leading Mobile Webapp for Hotels

Dublin, 9 May 2012
---

Bookassist has announced a major upgrade to their industry-leading mobile webapp solution for hotels and hotel groups. Following the original release in early 2010, Mobile Webapp V2 has been completely re-engineered to take advantage of the latest mobile technologies. Hundreds of hotels already use Bookassist's mobile solution and will receive an automatic upgrade to the new platform today.

Re-built from the ground up
"Since the first release of our mobile solution just a few short years ago, mobile use in travel has changed dramatically", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO. "We've re-built our mobile platform from scratch to be even more compatible with the proliferation of smart phones out there and to allow hotels to provide a much higher level of service to their mobile customers."

"People on mobile have specific needs and limited time. A mobile solution needs to be far more focused on your mobile customers’ specific needs than a website. Bookassist Mobile Webapp V2 is exactly that, and we've shown again with this release that we continue to lead the way in mobile innovation for hotels."

The system automatically switches mobile customers from the full website to the Mobile Webapp version for the hotel when it detects a smartphone in use. Customers then find instant access to the main features they need - make a booking, see photographs, switch languages, locate the hotel on a map and get directions, phone the hotel directly, see special offers - all in a simple, uncluttered interface. And if they prefer to exit to the full website, they can do so with a simple tap.

Social Media Integration
By tapping the new “Social” button on Mobile Webapp V2, hotel customers can view and interact with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube streams for the hotel right within the webapp. Hotels can publish their reviews on the web app so that customers feel more reassured before making a booking.

Booking on mobile is simple on Bookassist Mobile Webapp V2. From choosing rooms to completing a booking takes just a few taps. The system also includes Special Offers that hotels can customise for their mobile guests using the Bookassist Administration System.

More Smartphones Supported
Bookassist Mobile Webapp V2 runs on all the major mobile platforms so hotels can service their customers no matter what their choice of handset. Mobile Webapp V2 is built using cross-platform HTML5 and related technologies such as Ajax, which means it supports the latest versions of Apple iOS on iPhone, Google Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Bada, Symbian, Palm webOS, MeeGo and others.

Existing Mobile Webapp customers with Bookassist receive this upgrade automatically and without additional cost. For new customers, contact Bookassist in your region.

For more details, see bookassist.org/mobile.

Tripadvisor Direct with Bookassist

Bookassist continues its leading online strategy development through an exciting partnership with TripAdvisor to allow our client hotels to offer a direct booking link to their hotel website from their TripAdvisor page.

The new TripAdvisor Direct with Bookassist is one of the strongest third party calls to action you can avail of to drive more direct traffic to your website and generate new direct business today.

How It Works

With over 50 million reviews, TripAdvisor is the major source of influential user-generated content online and generates significant referral business for any hotel. When a visitor views your hotel profile on TripAdvisor, a list of providers or “partners” is provided underneath the “Show Prices” button. Bookassist has integrated with TripAdvisor to add your hotel website as a direct link on the list of providers. An additional feature of the show prices area is that it is always shown as a page banner even if the visitor scrolls down the page.

Pricing and Reporting

Actual clicks are charged by TripAdvisor on a cost per click (CPC) model. To avoid being charged for multiple clicks, Tripadvisor will only charge for the first click in any 24 hour period that comes from the same identified visitor to their site.

For existing Bookassist clients, Bookassist charges a single once-off set-up fee of €200 with no further management costs. This is by far the most competitive offering in the industry. Bookassist will report figures at the end of each month. The report will include details of the daily, weekly and monthly clicks for your property and the overall cost of the campaign. If you are not a Bookassist client, please contact us directly for pricing information.

Contact Us

Contact your local sales representative now and avail of TripAdvisor Direct with Bookassist - see the international contact details page or email sales@bookassist.com.

Bookassist and MICROS-Fidelio announce certified OPERA Connectivity Solution for Hotels

Dublin, 18 August 2011

Bookassist, the technology and online strategy firm for hotels, has announced official certification of their booking engine software integration with the OPERA Property Management System (PMS) from the world's leading hotel solutions provider MICROS-Fidelio. The connection service allows hotels to automatically and seamlessly manage their online reservations from Bookassist via the OPERA PMS.

The connection service is the latest in a list of integrations between Bookassist's popular booking platform and the world's leading property management systems and channel managers.

Speaking about the advantages of the integration, Karen Moran, Sales & Marketing Director at Moran & Bewley's Hotels UK & Ireland said: "We're delighted to have direct integration between our online booking and our MICROS-Fidelio OPERA property management systems right across the group. It saves considerable time and effort, and more importantly makes sure that the reservations detail is end-to-end accurate. The automation allows our staff to get on with the more important business of running the hotel rather than worrying about technology."

Bookassist have collaborated with MICROS-Fidelio on the integration and client roll-out over the last 18 months culminating in official certification. A number of existing mutual clients have been using the integration since its first introduction in late 2010.

Discussing the official certification, Bookassist CEO Dr Des O'Mahony said: "A significant number of our clients in all the countries we operate in are also MICROS-Fidelio clients. This integration is a real advantage for them, reducing manpower, eliminating transfer errors, and improving efficiency. We expect a significant uptake of this new joint service."

"MICROS-Fidelio is pleased to offer connectivity between our hotel solution OPERA and Bookassist. The interface with Bookassist provides automated booking notifications directly into the OPERA hotel system," said Dr Peter Agel, Senior Vice President eCommerce and Strategic Solutions EMEA at MICROS-Fidelio.

Bookassist® (bookassist.org) creates and manages successful and proven online strategies for thousands of hotels and groups and is one of the leading hotel booking engine and online marketing providers in Europe. Headquartered in Dublin and with offices in 6 countries, Bookassist has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation.

MICROS-Fidelio International (micros-fidelio.eu), the global markets subsidiary of MICROS®, is the premier provider of enterprise-wide integrated information technologies for the hotel industry. MICROS-Fidelio has become "the standard" in the industry with over 25,000 installations worldwide. Its enterprise solutions include multi-property, fully integrated hotel systems encompassing property management systems, sales and catering systems, central reservation systems, customer information systems, revenue management systems, an Internet/global distribution system-based hotel reservation service called myfidelio.net, and installation and support services associated with the various software products.

Bookassist5 Confirmed Speakers for September 27th

Bookassist's fifth annual hotel strategy conference, Bookassist5, is scheduled for the Conrad Hotel, Central Dublin on September 27th next, with presentations from the Bookassist Team as well as keynote topics from Peter O'Connor, Oonagh Cremins, Krishna De, Giancarlo Carniani and John Fanning.

Places are limited, so register now at http://bookassist.org/seminars/bookassist5

Bookassist Partners with TrustYou to Bring Reputation Alert Service to Hotels

Dublin, Ireland.
Wednesday June 29, 2011

Technology and online strategy company for hotels Bookassist (bookassist.org) has launched Reputation Alert, a new service to allow hotels to continually track online customer comments and reviews across hundreds of social media sites and bring them together in one convenient place. Featuring TrustYou semantic analysis of reviews, the service helps hotels create effective positive action plans based on their customers opinions. Reputation Alert will dramatically simplify the burden faced by hotels today in monitoring what is said about them online and in managing their valuable online reputation.

The service is available this month to all Bookassist’s clients for a competitive annual fee and can be accessed directly through their existing Bookassist hotel administration system.

Bookassist has partnered with TrustYou (www.trustyou.com), the innovative semantic search and social media management specialists, for the provision of automatic online reviews monitoring that forms the core of the Reputation Alert service. In addition to TrustYou services, Reputation Alert will also automatically collect reviews from hotel guests who use the hotel’s web booking engine. As part of the service, Bookassist Account Managers for each hotel will additionally monitor online review data and work to create corrective action plans for hotel clients to actively improve online reputation.

“Online reputation is a critical influencer in decisions to book hotels", said Dr Des O'Mahony, Bookassist CEO and Founder. “With the proliferation of online review services and social media, it has become a daunting task for hotels to stay on top of their reputation, and to quickly act on that information. Reputation Alert solves this problem.”

“We are delighted to integrate TrustYou’s social data platform and semantic analysis into Bookassist’s systems to enrich their service. With our combined forces we are able to help hoteliers to collect, analyze and engage with customer reviews throughout the social web” said Benjamin Jost, TrustYou CEO and Co-Founder.

The service is not just about getting the volume of online information into manageable form. Hotels also need to act on this information and quickly correct issues arising. Bookassist Account Managers, as part of the Reputation Alert service, will work with the collected reputation data and with the hotels to create responsive action plans.

“No amount of online technology will make up for poor offline service”, says O’Mahony. “Hotels must use Reputation Alert as a monitor of their service levels and learn from what their guests are saying in order to begin the reputation improvement process”.

The service has already been in trial for a number of weeks and has received strongly positive reviews.

"It's challenging trying to monitor what is being said about our hotel. With Reputation Alert we can see everything on review and social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Flickr. This will enable us to manage, respond and act very quickly" commented Denise Corboy, Director of Sales at Camden Court Hotel in Dublin (camdencourthotel.com).

"Bookassist’s Reputation Alert gives me a greater insight into what people are saying online about my property. I can also very quickly benchmark against my competitors and look for opportunities to differentiate myself from them. I particularly like the facility to respond to guest reviews directly from within system" said Martin Cassidy of Cassidy’s Hotel in Dublin (cassidyshotel.com)

"Reputation Alert is a very useful tool which will assist us in listening to what our guests are saying online. We gain valuable data allowing us to improve our overall service and product quickly", said Kim Murtagh, Sales and Marketing Manager at Stillorgan Park Hotel (stillorganpark.com).

Reputation Alert, incorporating TrustYou services, is rolled out this month in all of Bookassist’s key markets. For more information, see bookassist.org/reputation

Bookassist® creates and manages online strategies for hotels and groups and is one of the leading hotel booking technology and online marketing providers in Europe. Headquartered in Dublin, with offices in Madrid, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Prague, Bookassist is a Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Company and Top 100 Deloitte Technology Company in Europe. The company has received numerous awards in Online Trade, Online Marketing, and Technological Innovation including the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Internet Entrepreneur Award.

TrustYou gathers and semantically structures opinions found online in reviews, posts, and comments, and makes them accessible through a range of applications and APIs. TrustYou-Analytics, the leading social media management tool worldwide, allows hoteliers, destinations, and travel companies to analyze and react to the quality and reputation of their hotels according to the data collected from reviews posted online. Current customers include hundreds of hotels and travel giants such as InterContinental Hotels, Best Western Hotels, Maritim Hotels, Worldhotels, Trust International, Micros-Fidelio, HolidayCheck and many more. TrustYou was founded in 2008 by Jakob Riegger and Benjamin Jost. In November 2010, PhoCusWright honoured and recognized TrustYou as one of the leading innovators in travel.

Bookassist completes pre-summer seminar series

Bookassist has completed a series of very successful seminars in Prague on 31.05.2011, in Karlovy Vary on 01.06.2011 and in Paris on 07.06.2011. Over 200 delegates participated overall with presentations on reputation management, social media integration and ecommerce, mobile opportunites for hotels and much more. See Bookassist's Facebook page on facebook.com/bookassist for some pictures of the events.

Bookassist Appoints Legal Counsel

Bookassist has announced the appointment of Elaine McCormack as Legal Counsel to the company, to be based in its Dublin Headquarters.

Elaine is a commercial solicitor with over eleven years experience working as a commercial lawyer before joining Bookassist. She has previously worked in a number of large commercial law firms and has also worked as a lawyer in the Irish Telecommunications Regulator and in Pioneer Investments. Elaine qualified as a solicitor in Ireland in 2003 and in England and Wales in 2010.

Elaine holds a Bachelor of Corporate Law and LLB from NUI, Galway and a Diploma in Commercial Law from the Law Society of Ireland. Elaine is also an Irish and European Registered Trade Mark and Design Attorney.

Bookassist's Rome team expands

Pietro Filippi has been appointed Director of Sales for Italy. Pietro comes to Bookassist with a wealth of experience in hotel contracting in big organizations around Europe. He has previously worked as Director of a CTS travel agency and in Transhotel as Sales Executive. He then joined Albatravel Group as Sales Manager, rising to Senior Contract Manager. More recently, he has been at Kuoni Group as FIT Contract Manager for Italy and Malta.

Fiamma Franceschilli joins Bookassist as Senior Account Manager for Italy. Fiamma has extensive experience in the online travel industry. She started and built a large part of the Venere.com affiliate network at the very early stages of that company's growth. She has since been in a business development role for GTA in Italy before moving to Booking.com as Account Manager for Distribution.

Lucrezia Pettinato joins Bookassist's existing team in Rome as Support Coordinator. Lucrezia has previous experience in a number of 5 star hotels in Rome and Edinburgh with responsibility for Online Marketing activities, competitive analysis and rate management. She holds a Masters in Hospitality and Hotel management.

Sales Manager Appointed for German-Speaking Markets

Wilhelm Pichler has joined Bookassist as Sales Manager for German speaking markets.

He has worked as Country Manager Austria for the well known B2B online platform Transhotel for more than 4 years being responsible for growth of the Austrian market, as well as for a property management software (PMS) company. Prior to that he was Business Development Manager for Orange Wings, a modern startup hotel group in the low budget segment, as well as managing a resort hotel in Kenya/East Africa as Hotel Manager. He has also in the past held many other hotel positions and has run his own travel agency. Wilhelm brings excellent CRM experience and sales know-how also from his experience as Product Marketing Manager for a CRM software company. He has a degree in Hotel and Tourist Management from the HLF in Krems.