GuestCentric embraces WordPress community of more than 200 million blogs and websites with an innovative online booking plug-in

WordPress plug-in enforces GuestCentric’s hotel booking engine as the most portable in the industry

GuestCentric Systems the premier Software-as-a Service provider for the independent hotel industry today announced the availability of a plug-in that allows websites and blogs built on WordPress to easily include GuestCentric’s innovative hotel booking engine.

The new plug-in opens the door to WordPress designers to create websites with state of the art technologies for the hotel industry. For the first time designers can easily offer fully integrated e-commerce facilities on websites and/or blogs, by installing GuestCentric’s portable booking engine to promote online bookings. The new plug-in is available at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/guestcentric-booking-gadget/

“The idea was to create a WordPress plug-in that simplified the insertion of GuestCentric’s booking engine by using an easy-to-use widget interface,” said Pedro Araujo author of the booking engine WordPress plug-in. “the installation of the plug-in is extremely easy. All you need to do is to insert an API Key that is provided by GuestCentric platform, select the type of widget and in less than a minute a property can have direct online bookings from a WordPress webpage.”

GuestCentric provides the fastest hotel booking engine in the industry based on the latest Ajax technology. The booking engine provides guests a unique secure shopping experience with a Rates+Availability map that allows increasing conversion rates, maximizing revenue-per-stay and generating satisfied guests. The shopping experience is uniquely interactive, allowing key features like deal shopping or one-click checkout for returning guests.

“The WordPress web design and development community has created over 200 million websites and blogs. The new plug-in developed for WordPress is a response to WordPress web designers need to include top-notch e-commerce solutions on hotel sites and blogs.” said Filipe Machaz, GuestCentric’s Vice-President of Product Management “With this new application, WordPress designers finally have the opportunity to easily offer great hotel websites and enhance their market share in the hotel industry. By embracing this leading-edge community GuestCentric will continue its path to level the playing field for independent hotel owners and operators.”

WordPress platform is preferred more and more by hoteliers around the world, because it simplifies the integration of blogs with CMS; this provides managers different and better ways to promote hotels online.

About GuestCentric
GuestCentric Systems develops and markets web services that revolutionize the way independent hotels work. GuestCentric has built a Software as a Service platform that allows independent hotels to develop long-standing relationships with guests, improve online revenues and lower expenses associated with online distribution. Also it provides hoteliers with a professional hotel website design. Through use of Web 2.0 technologies, GuestCentric provides easy-to-use tools at reasonable prices that up until now were only available for hotels with big budgets.

by Joao Trindade

Being at the forefront of innovation for the hospitality industry sometimes creates unplanned obstacles: how do you encapsulate in a “buzz word” a multitude of features in a way that people will understand: what it is and what it does? Let me tell you, it’s not easy.  I think this is what happens when people hear about our portable booking engine. “Is this hotel booking engine really portable?”: Yes it is. “Ok, so what do you mean by portable?”: it’s actually a good thing you asked because this will allow me to explain how this works a bit better! I will give you 3 examples:

1. You can post it in websites: Our Hotel Booking engine will allow you to place it on any website just by adding a link with a “book now” image. This means that if you have a restaurant or a surf academy that you partner with, you can easily add your hotel’s booking engine in their website and expand your visibility.
2. You can post it in Facebook: Expanding your brand nowadays is a key success factor for hotels and Facebook is one of the main ingredients. With GuestCentric’s Portable booking engine you can add booking capabilities to Facebook that will allow people to book directly.
3. You can send it via Twitter: So, you have your Twitter account setup and, with the help of GuestCentric’s Twitter Center, you are following a bunch of people that mention your hotel’s name or your location. If someone mentions that they want to travel on a specific time frame to your area, what do you do? With GuestCentric Portable booking engine you can send this person a tweet (a twitter message for those not yet familiar with these new words) with a link. This link can be setup to open the booking engine with the dates pre-selected and even the room choice pre-selected. How cool is that?!

Best of all, we’re always talking about the same booking engine, same back-office/platform and the same security. This means that you can do all this with no extra work, extra software and probably the most important factor, no extra cost!
PS: If you think you have a better term for it, I would love to hear it

(View Pedro’s presentation at the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit ‘09)

GuestCentric Systems (http://www.guestcentric.com), the premier Software-as-a Service provider for the independent hotel industry, announced a new pricing model for its web-based e-commerce management solution capped at $499. This new pricing model includes GuestCentric’s best-in-class hotel booking engine, hotel analytics, guest CRM and the just released social commerce tools.

“Despite GuestCentric’s consecutive months of increased sales records, in 2009 we noticed that some prospect properties from our main markets US, UK and Spain were not able to commit to the monthly fixed cost. That was when it was decided to share the risks with our customers and offer a revenue-share plan with a monthly threshold that will simplify our pricing and expand our potential customer’s base.” Said Miguel Gaia GuestCentric’s E-commerce director

With the new pricing plan, hoteliers are guarantee that they will only be charged for usage of the comprehensive e-commerce management platform when they make money. The default rate for hotels of up to 100 rooms is 6% capped at $499 for bookings that are processed with GuestCentric’s portable booking engine. This means that regardless the amount of reservations received per month, hoteliers will never pay more than $499. For properties larger than 100 rooms or portals with multiple properties, the pricing will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

The new pricing provides opportunities for independent hotels to have access to top-notch technology to sell their rooms online, manage rates and availability, and optimize their customer engagement process using social media outlets at affordable prices. This breakthrough pricing presents for the first time a real opportunity for small hotels to access such a high-end product.

About GuestCentric’s features:

Powerful e-commerce

• Portable hotel booking engine – GuestCentric’s best-in-class booking engine provides a unique shopping experience with unparallel speed and convenience for guests willing to book online. GuestCentric’s booking engine is the only portable booking engine in the market that can be directly integrated to different websites, like Facebook, YouTube or partner websites.
• Hotel analytics – GuestCentric offers dashboards and reports provides alerts and notification of how to improve the property’s online progress, as well as check the website’s visibility, sales focus, bookable offers, and overall performance.
• Guest CRM – The system automatically collects a complete guest profile with the guest’s stay history. This information is crucial to create successful marketing campaigns to promote special deals and loyalty.

Social customer engagement

• Twitter center – Send, track, monitor and schedule messages on Twitter and easily monitor what people are saying about the property.
• Follower specials – Increase the brand exposure, create a loyalty program and easily reward social media followers with special deals created and available exclusively for them.
• Customer intimacy – Provide a more personalize service to your guests and learn more about who they are, what they want, need or think. Twitter profiles as well as last post are fully integrated with guest’s profile.

Time saving tools

• Set and forget setup – The easy-to-use interface of the platform allows a quick setup process in 45 minutes.
• Multilingual support – Increase brand presence and reach other regions by offering the booking engine and website in up to 5 languages in a fast and intuitive manner.
• Picture manager – a sophisticated and intuitive picture manager that allows you to easily upload and display images as you wish on your website.

Additional pricing information and details on signing up for a 14 day free trial, available on http://www.guestcentric.com/pricing

About GuestCentric Systems
GuestCentric Systems develops and markets web services that revolutionize the way independent hotels work. GuestCentric has built a Software as a Service platform that allows independent hotels to develop long-standing relationships with guests, improve online revenues and lower expenses associated with online distribution. Through use of Web 2.0 technologies, GuestCentric provides easy-to-use tools at reasonable prices that up until now were only available for hotels with big budgets.

The end of our trip to FITUR helped us reinforce that GuestCentric Systems provides the most innovative technology in the market. After speaking with many properties independent or chain hotels, we confirmed  that no other hotel technology provider offers a portable booking engine with a full integration to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. With GuestCentric social media platform hotel operators can plan, implement, maintain, drive revenue and measure results from their social media channels.
If you are an Independent property or a chain hotel in need for innovative technologies at affordable prices to expand your brand and stimulate loyalty, contact us and try our booking engine for 14 days for free.

Portable booking engine		Social distribution		Followers specials

Posted by Chicke Fitzgerald Founder of Solutionz Media

In the “The Future of the Social Web,” report released by Forrester in April 2009, by Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester senior analyst, laid out the past, present and future state of the social Web into five overlapping eras. According to Owyang, the era of social commerce was slated to begin in 2011.

Well, social commerce is here. Today

go to blog

Author: Linda Fox

Hi,

Christmas is around the corner and we want to see you with your smile on. A new era of customer engagement has arrived with social media and the GuestCentric platform just got powered-up with some unique features that will help you monetize this great opportunity. This latest edition was just launched at the PhoCusWright 2009 Travel Innovation Summit and we couldn’t be happier with the results. Go on and check out all the great features we’ve setup for you!

If you want to view our presentation at the PhoCusWright Conference click here!

If you have anything you would like to tell us, do not hesitate to send us an email to suggestions@guestcentric.com, and keep checking back for additions and improvements.

Portable Booking Link
	Send last minute deals and special offers directly to your clients, increase your visibility and opportunity to sell those last rooms available.You can easily create a direct link to your booking engine, with room types, promotions and pre-selected dates to send to your contacts via email, Twitter or Facebook. As soon as someone clicks on the link, they will be redirected to your hotel booking engine with the pre-selected offer ready to book. Wow!
Twitter Promotions
	Create your Twitter community and reward them with special promotions exclusively available for Twitter followers.Start your Twitter community by creating special offers that are exclusively available for your Twitter followers. Your brand exposure will increase and you will create a hotel loyalty program.
Twitter Center
	Send, track and monitor messages on Twitter and find out what people are saying about your hotel. Use this area to manage your hotel and guests Tweets. You can keep track on what your in house guests and next arrivals are saying and interact with them. To simplify your life, Guestcentric’s platform allows you to schedule your Tweets and be automatically published by the platform. You can manage your Tweeter timeline directly inside the platform.
Twitter GuestFinder
	Find potential guests that are traveling to your location or participating in an event near you.Enter a maximum of 10 keywords related to your business to be search on Twitter and your platform will bring back results in real time. All Twitter users that send a message with your keywords will be spotted and you will be able to interact with them in order to attract them to your hotel.
Twitter Guest Profiles
	The Guest area has improved with the Twitter profile integration by providing hotels with full access to the guests’ photo, profile details and latest Tweets. This is an excellent opportunity to anticipate your guest’s needs and concerns. In one click the platform will automatically update the profile information of your contact/guest, providing you with detail information to provide a unique stay.
Reputation with YouTube Videos
	Your hotel videos posted on YouTube are now available at the Reputation area. Your GuestCentric platform automatically collects all YouTube videos where your hotel is tagged and post them on your Reputation area. You can now keep better track of what is been said about your brand and share it around.

Enjoy!
GuestCentric Team
Filipe Machaz
VP of Product Management

Hi,

The Fall version has been upgraded, and brings more exciting news. With the Winter 2009 Release your GuestCentric platform usability has been improved. It reveals the results from the work done in analyzing your feedback and daily usage. We want to boost your direct business and are listening closely to your suggestions. If you have anything you would like to tell us, do not hesitate to send us an email to suggestions@guestcentric.com, and keep checking back for additions and improvements.

New login access
	The new look shows a more professional and interactive login. Now you can easily have access to key areas like Phone Support, Live Support or to Report a problem. When you access GuestCentric’s platform you will find a new look and feel. None of the older options were changed; we only added some key shortcuts. In Phone Support, you will find GuestCentric worldwide support phone numbers. The Live Support allows you to chat with our Support team in real time. Or if you wish you can send a message to the support team on the Report a Problem area.
All dashboards in a unique area
	Performance reports and metrics are now located in the Dashboard area, together with Webs metrics, Revenue performance or Conversion ratios. The Dashboard area is now fully packed with all the reports and metrics available in the platform. Perform your daily tasks in several existing areas like Contacts, Guests, Reservations, Revenue and Website, but don’t forget to analyze your business assessing the reports of the Dashboard area.
Backoffice setup improvements
	In this new release, we have implemented a new layout and grouped the several actions you may perform Home, Administration and Webmaster are the new three areas available. Use the Setup Home page to set your booking engine essentials, edit the way you market your property and insert data about your hotel to populate your website pages. Administration will allow you to create / edit users, setup taxes, change login and credit card access passwords. While the Webmaster area allows you to change settings of the domain and access the hosting of the website.

Enjoy!
GuestCentric Team
Filipe Machaz
VP of Product Management

Fairfield, NJ – GuestCentric, the premier Software-as-a-Service provider for the independent hotel industry, announced the launching of a breakthrough customer engagement platform. The word-of-mouth revolution led by the explosive growth of social networking sites Twitter and Facebook gives hotels access to a new direct distribution and marketing channel to customers.

This new platform allows hotel operators to easily expand their brand with the use of viral marketing strategies and at the same time engage social networking customers by making them feel special.

GuestCentric’s Customer Engagement platform includes:

• Guest finder – GuestCentric’s Guest finder helps hoteliers to easily find potential customers that are planning a trip to a specific city or are looking for specific dates, features etc.
• Portable booking link – This gadget enables hoteliers to create a link to the booking engine and sell a specific promotion or room type at a specific date and easily send it to a specific social media customer, embed in an email, etc.
• Special Twitter Promotion – GuestCentric has the first booking engine with a native Twitter follower restriction that allows hoteliers to offer special deals and packages to hotel followers.
• Itinerary sharing– GuestCentric is the first booking engine that allows sharing trip information with friends. This viral marketing tool extends the brand by reaching out to thousands of people using the social media outlets.
• Reputation – The Customer Engagement platform searches, monitors and consolidates what people are saying about a property in a multitude of social media channels like TripAdvisor, Twitter, blogs, news, Facebook and others.

“Social media allows hoteliers to engage customers, know who they are, what they want, anticipate their needs and service them better.” said Pedro Colaco GuestCentric President and CEO “GuestCentric’s customer engagement platform enables hoteliers to make guests forget about their bad experiences prior to arrival to the hotel, and encourage them to write about great experiences. This positive energy will generate brand awareness and increased bookings.”

GuestCentric unveils New Customer Engagement Platform at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit