Making it to the top of the hotel chain
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This great new article just came out on The Advocate (Stamford) by Michael C. Juliano and he goes right to the point. Check it out:
Making it to the top of the hotel chain: Area company helps with reservations, marketing
A local marketing firm is offering a cost-effective way for smaller hotels to incorporate online booking and marketing services, enabling them to compete with larger chains.
GuestCentric, a Stamford-based online hospitality software as a service provider, has created a Web site allowing independent hotels to manage online and offline bookings. On the site, hotel managers also can keep track of online performance and market their hotels on the Internet.
Pedro Colaco, GuestCentric’s president and chief executive officer, said he realized two years ago that independent hotels were using outdated booking software with no access to the online market.
“Their problem is really distribution,” said Colaco, who co-founded the company in 2006 with vice president Filipe Machaz. “This is about giving the small guys the ability to compete with the big guys at a reasonable price.”
Within two weeks of using GuestCentric, online bookings for South Carolina’s Hotel Aiken, which uses other Web services such as expedia.com, had doubled from 25 to 55 reservations per week, said Lindsey Wise, the hotel’s sales coordinator.
“We’re getting at least one reservation a day from GuestCentric,” she said.
Bookings at the 64-room hotel have increased dramatically with GuestCentric because people can make reservations on the hotel’s Web site, said Wise.
“This makes our Web site more user-friendly,” she said.
According to its Web site, GuestCentric’s rates vary from $70 per month to $500 per month.
GuestCentric, which has offices in Portugal and the United Kingdom and less than 100 clients, plans on marketing its service by calling hotels, Internet promotion and holding presentations across the United States and Europe, Calaco said.
“We believe the smaller hotels are community-based,” he said.
Susan Henrique, director of sales and marketing for the Norwalk Convention & Visitors Bureau, said GuestCentric offers a very inexpensive alternative for small hotels trying to get online business.
“This is a definite plus for hotels and inns,” she said, adding that developing an independent Web site can cost thousands of dollars. “If I were filling hotels as an independent, I’d certainly look at this.”
Writer Michael C. Juliano can be reached at michael.juliano@scni.com or 964-2417.
