Hola soy Karla Martinez y pertenezco al departamento de marketing de GuestCentric. Me da mucha alegría darles la bienvenida a nuestra nueva página web en español. Esta página web fue creada pensando en los hoteles independientes de España y América Latina.
Aquí podrás encontrar toda la información relacionada con nuestro servicio, información sobre la industria hotelera, clientes en destaque e información importante sobre la empresa. También contamos con un blog en el que podrás encontrar información que sobre las últimas tendencias del mercado, recientes  actualizaciones de nuestro servicio, lo que los medios de comunicación dicen sobre nosotros, nuestros videos y conocer más sobre el equipo GuestCentric.
Te invito a conocer la página y descubrir por qué es importante para los hoteles independientes enfocarse más en el comercio electrónico para incrementar reservas y fidelizar clientes.

Service Now Available for Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese Speaking Markets

STAMFORD, CT – GuestCentric Systems (www.guestcentric.com/es), the premier Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider for the independent hotel industry, today announced further enhancements to its easy-to-use GuestCentric online booking and marketing service, including multilingual support for Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese languages. With expanded language support and capabilities, GuestCentric can help hotel operators easily expand their online presence to international markets to attract new website visitors, increase bookings and online revenue.

Designed to meet the demands of attracting guests from all over the world, GuestCentric’s new multilingual support overcomes the need to rely on custom development of a property’s website for each country. Hoteliers simply click on the desired GuestCentric-built page to be translated, add the information in the desired language and the service automatically places the new page in the website.

“With support for international languages, independent hotels can now leverage GuestCentric’s service to generate more online revenue in a struggling travel economy,” said Pedro Colaco President & CEO GuestCentric Systems. “We continue to work to provide independent hotels with an easy-to-use, time saving service that uses the latest technologies to help them level the playing field with large chains.”
“International travelers represent 40% of our online bookings that is why it was crucial for Memmo Baleira Hotel to offer a multilingual website,” said Rodrigo Machaz, General Manager at Memmo Baleira Hotel.  “With GuestCentric’s language support, publishing our website in different languages was really easy. Once we had the hotel’s information translated, the website was up and running in a couple of minutes.”

About GuestCentric’s Service

GuestCentric is a simple and cost effective Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) online marketing and booking platform specifically designed for independent hotels. Starting at $69 per month and using only a web browser, hoteliers can create a professional-looking website, yield prices, manage the online and offline reservations, offer customers a fluid shopping experience, and create promotions using its built-in e-marketing tools. For more information on GuestCentric’s booking and marketing service, please go to: tour the service

About GuestCentric

Headquartered in Stamford, CT with offices in UK and Portugal, GuestCentric Systems (http://www.guestcentric.com/es) is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider that revolutionizes the way independent hotel operators compete for customers with larger players in the travel industry. Its online marketing and booking platform offers a simple and cost-effective way for hoteliers to create a professional web display of the hotel property, integrate direct booking and online marketing capabilities to increase online bookings, lower expenses and develop long-standing relationships with guests.

Hello again, I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year!

This winter season has been very active for GuestCentric not only did the new website go live but also we launched the GuestCentric Winter 2008 Platform that brings exciting upgrades and new features to the service.
Take a quick look at what the new platform has to offer:

• Expand your market
  Promote your property to new prospects with Multilanguage support. This easy to use system allows you to create and manage your website and booking engine in different languages.
• Contact forms

GuestCentric knows that some of your website visitors feel more comfortable with a more personal contact with the hotel that is why a new contact form page was added to the backend of your website. With this new option you can receive all sorts of inquires and ensure not to lose any prospective clients.

• Guest Relationship Management

The easiest and faster way to identifying loyal guests and rank preferred guests accordingly.

• New Yielding tools
  After long internal and external usability cycles we simplify the management of price and availability. Now you have tools that will make this tedious process simple and faster.
• Enhance your website
  New rich media gadgets with the latest interactive technologies were added to your website. Promote your property with YouTube videos, dynamic promotions and local weather information in one simple click.

For more details on the new features please contact our customer service.

Filipe Tappenbeck
VP of Product Management

Hi, my name is Joao Trindade and I’m with GuestCentric’s Marketing department. I’m stoked to present to you our new website.

For the last year or so we’ve been collecting feedback from customers and website visitors, trying to understand their needs and doubts. What we realized was that in most cases there’s a great lack of understanding on some fundamentals about how the online channel works and the significance of its rapid evolution.

The first glimpse we had regarding this subject was around 8 months ago when we finished the “The Online Gap Report“. This report clearly showed that concerning the online channel, there is a wide gap between the independent hotels and the big chains; most of it caused by this lack of information I’ve just mentioned above.

With this website we are aiming to provide a better service for independent hoteliers and offer you valuable information about the “whys” and “how-tos” of this always evolving online travel market – and we will break it down into numbers. In these uncertain economic times, numbers are more important than ever, as hoteliers seek to ensure their return on investment (yes; the infamous “ROI”).

Most of all, we want to show you how our stalwart one-stop-shop service, with website design, secure hosting, booking engine, reservation platform and hotel marketing can help you boost your business like it did for Hotel Aiken, who continue to increase their direct online bookings by the day and are thus a prominent example of our customers’ success stories.

Our blog was designed as our main source of communication to all of you, so you’ll be able to choose from different categories to help you find the information you’re looking for. Starting January, we will also launch a series of webinars to help you on topics related to website design, yield management, and much more – so stay tuned!

Most of all, we want to continue to receive your feedback, so don’t be a stranger and contact us!

PS. We will also continue to post our videos on our YouTube channel, so make sure to check those out.

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.

Using highly scientific methods of observation, I’ve discovered that 92% of hoteliers will ask “How much will it/does it cost?” within 56 seconds of a first time conversation. This is a valid concern these days. Understandably, in the current economic climate few business owners are looking to increase their bills but even fewer can afford to miss the opportunity to increase revenue and exposure. GuestCentric’s revolutionary platform includes a sophisticated, professionally designed website, a real time booking engine and a backend management system that will provide oodles of useful information in a format that rivals paint-by-numbers in the user friendly department with the even friendlier condition of NO start up or set up fee. After doing some more rogue research I found that, for most hotels, one to two room bookings per month pays for our sensibly-priced-no-contract service and then some.
This is, of course, after having taken it for a free test drive first. So, with a free trial to give you a head start on getting some commission free bookings followed by pricing that offers instant return on investment – how can you lose? In today’s economic climate and online environment we could all use more services that not only pay for themselves but generate more virtual attention and real business.

Deirdre Knowlton
Senior account manager
+1 203 883 9830
Contact me online

Hi, I am Filipe Tappenbeck VP of Product Management. I would like to share with you the good news about the release of GuestCentric’s Fall ‘08 Platform. Best part of all, the service is available for everyone!

There were some exciting updates and new features added to our service that will make your life easier. Among other new features and updates you will find:

Updated booking engine
The updated booking engine provides guests a unique shopping experience where they can shop for promotions, last minute specials and adjust their budget using filter options.

Stay restrictions and cancellation policies
Conditions and restrictions for promotions can be set up to allow customization of offers including early bookings, last-minute specials, weekend getaways etc

Tripadvisor direct-connect

Integrate Tripadvisor user reviews in your hotel website site and benefit from guest reviews.

‘Export to excel’ feature
From now on you can analyze your guests and reservations offline, just use the ‘export to excel’ to create a spread sheet of your records.

Learn more about GuestCentric or subscribe to get your 30 day free trial

After many hours of usability testing, we are delight to announce the introduction of an Interactive Dashboard to your GuestCentric Platform. The dashboard is a marketing performance tool design specifically for independent properties like yours to easily track the effectiveness of your website, to know what kind of information your customers search for and what is needed to convert visitors into customers.

/

In the interactive dashboard you will be able to find information like:

- Graphs showing daily number of visits

- Number of unique visitors

- Time spent on each page

- Visitor statistics by country

- Detailed information on the booking engine interaction

- Real-time information on total revenue generated

/

You will also get weekly tips on how to improve online revenue and visibility through the usage of your GuestCentric Platform.

/
We are sure this new feature will meet all your expectations and needs. Let us know what you think, send us your comments.

/
Sign up for a 30 Day Free Trial and see how in less than a month your website will generate outstanding results.

Hi, my name is Pedro Gomes and I am GuestCentric Product Manager. Part of my job is to make sure things run smoothly for our customers and what a better way to know when this is accomplished than to receive enthusiastic feedback about the service. Over a month ago Mr. Gallego an independent hotel owner signed up for GuestCentric’s free trial. He is not what one could call a tech savvy person.

Recently I received news from him; he finished setting up his website, he was extremely proud of the results and very satisfied with how easy the entire process was. Using GuestCentric’s InstantHotel Technology which was developed specifically for hotels, he was able to create a professional looking website, from scratch, by himself in less than a week. He was surprised on how easy it was to develop the right menus structure and to populate the pages with content.

InstantHotel Technology helped Mr. Gallego developing content easily as it uses all the information added to the system to populate the website pages. He was especially pleased on how good his amateur pictures looked on the flash banners. He finished the page by adding some of the available gadgets like Google maps and picture gallery. This was one of those special events for me because Mr. Gallego had zero hours of training on GuestCentric service. It is encouraging for me to hear that all the hours spend on usability tests based on creating easy to use and time saving services for independent hotels has paid off with satisfied customers and it is definitely a motive to continue generating ways to ease up your workload.

Once the website was published he applied a direct marketing strategy provided by GuestCentric on how to increase website visitors, the results were extraordinary but I will tell you more about that some other time.
Check out Vale do Gaio Hotel website at www.valedogaio.com What do you think?

We are happy to announce the release of the latest feature added to your GuestCentric service: the Website Builder.

After long hours of usability tests, we were able to create a simple and easy process to help you manage and create your website content from wherever you are in less than 15 minutes.

The website builder is a content management system tool integrated with the backend of our service. The feature was especially developed thinking on the needs of the Independent Hotels, just like you. This new feature among other things will help you to freely create and organize content for your website, update your website whenever you need and manage your website search engine optimization in a matter of a few clicks.

Learn more about the website builder in the backend of our service.