We'll the new year is now in full swing and with it comes a lot of new opportunities for us. We have officially launched a new version of our booking engine with loads of new features and an overhaul of the booking process itself. With the new year comes new blood with the addition of a new member of the Accubook team. We would like to introduce Christian Gehrke who comes to us from America and has over 8 years experience in travel and web development market. Christian has worked with companie...

The new Booking Engine (AccuBook 2) has many advanced features (listed below) but the key target was to improve the Conversion Rate (how many people search for a room compared with how many acutally book). This has been done by borrowing techniques from the airline industry ie Customers have the choice to search for rooms on a specific date, but underneath the results are room prices AND packages that are available around the selected dates. This is to give visitors the maximum choice and not ...

Consumer generated media, a threat or an opportunity? December 13, 2006 by Max Starkov and Jason Price Consumer generated media (CGM) - blogs, discussion boards, review sites, social network sites, etc. - has remained a prevalent subject in hotel marketing discussions in the past year. How can hotel and travel marketers use this new medium to their advantage? Should CGM be considered an opportunity to promote the hotel product and be part of the marketing strategy, or is it a threat that needs...

Original Source Here Travelocity.com parent SabreHoldings (NYSE: TSG) has become the latest online travel specialist to change hands. The company is accepting an all-cash buyout offer from Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group that will retire shareholders to the tune of $32.75 a share. The news wasn't a well-guarded secret. The stock soared yesterday as various media outlets reported that the private equity consortium was making a play on the company and that Apollo Group was mountin...

Please below our suggested specification for a hotel website. Feel free to use this to discuss with your Web Designer. Book Online Reservation Managers have a login to set up Rooms/Packages and edit Allocation/Prices. Offers Secure Online Payment Facilities via Worldpay. Automatic E Mail Confirmations direct to customers after booking. Customers must agree Terms and Conditions before a booking can be completed. Permits Gift Vouchers to be sold online. Promotions Codes ...

Hotel Managers New Years Online resolutions. In 2007 I will; Double my online bookings. Generate a good quality Customer Database and ensure that we have a good system for gathering customer details such as E Mail Addresses and Mobile Numbers. Construct a Frequent Customer Scheme with clear Membership Advantages. Start sending out E Zines at least Bi-Monthly Test distribution of Last Minute Offers via text SMS Messages. Appoint someone to be responsible for the website...

We at AccuBook agree an Online Marketing Plan with all ourt Hotel Customers on a yearly basis. Although the Plans are all individually tailored in practise the content is very similar. It can be a useful exercise to address specific weaknesses, if for example a hotel is having problems creating and maintaining a Customer Database it may be useful to make this a target ie 'Add 100 Customers to the database per month'.(working to the old maxime that if you want to improve something measure it!)....

We were recently asked to coach a semi-state body as to how to get the best out of a website project. Not an unreasonable question when you consider that there is estimated to be 3 million webpages going up onto the world wide web per day. How do you get value from the time, effort and money invested? As part of this session we focussed on 'Scope Creep'. To emphasize the point we asked the assembled group to create a specification for a dummy website for a local town. This was their answer; ...

There is much discussion at present about Google Adwords, where you can pay to have an advert appear on Google when someone searches for specific words. Here is one customer's experience. "We had heard that Adwords didn't produce good results, but we thought the relatively cheap costs - € 15 a month - merited a try," said Sharon Crowe, Sales Manager, Hotel Kilmore. "We were very pleased with the results. Four per cent of viewers clicked on the advert and that generated a noticeable upturn in...

This Bulletin deals with the release of the new Gift Voucher feature that can be found in AccuBook , InterNETalias Booking Engine. Gift Vouchers have long been a feature of the Hotel Industry, attractions being the low 'take up' rate and the fact that it is a cash in advance business. However making them available online has afforded new opportunities that some hotels have seized with creativity. A Hotel Room is generally seen as something that is required when a holiday or a business trip i...