BookingCenter Customer Newsletter Winter 2003/2004

Greetings from The BookingCenter Team!

As we approach the holiday season, BookingCenter thanks you for your support and sends best wishes to you and your families.

BookingCenter helps you work smarter, not harder to simplify property management, increase your bookings, and help your business profit.

We are very pleased to announce the much-anticipated Version 5.0 is now available. Read on for complete details.

Are you taking advantage of all the benefits BookingCenter offers? Would you like to . . . . . . .

We love hearing about your experiences on how BookingCenter is helping your property get More Bookings with Less Work. Please contact us and share your success stories with BookingCenter.

Wishing you great happiness and much success,

Introducing BookingCenter Version 5.0

BookingCenter Version 5.0 is a dramatic step forward in automating your business. Version 5.0 includes many new features to streamline the entire booking process and increase revenue, including:

Live Synch
Immediately synchronizes your Internet bookings with the front desk ensuring accurate inventory.

Automatic Off Site Data Back Up
Save time and prevent the loss of valuable booking data.

Online Items and Packages
Sell tours, meals, lift tickets, or packages at the time of booking, to easily increases revenue and improves guest service.

Improved Reporting
Simplify analysis into a one-step reporting process.

Easily Customize Documents
Custom Registration Cards, Confirmation Letters, and Guest Marketing formatted to your specifications.

Improved Tax & Accounting
Simplify tracking and tax reporting for B&Bs and other package bundlers.

Take advantage of the new, cutting edge features. Please see http://www.bookingcenter.com/products/ver5_upgrade.html or contact us at 800-315-0042 or sales@bookingcenter.com.

Tips and Tricks: How to Back Up Your BookingCenter Data

Are you systematically backing up all the important data on your PC every day, before you close? If not, here is a chance to develop good back up habits.

It is critical you make a DAILY data back up so your booking, financial, and tax information can easily be restored when needed.

Backing up on the same PC or at your location is not wise, as your data could be lost, stolen, or corrupted. Electrical outages, fire or water damage could damage your computer and the data on it. One unprepared hotel owner's computer was damaged due to a lightening storm. He was not able to restore his data easily because of poor back-up habits. This is why we recommend off-site data back up on a remote server or using "removable media" to take home with you every night.

Note: BookingCenter's data file is larger than a floppy disc's storage capacity requiring other back up options.

Here are a few options to backup your data.

Data Back Up Options
Zip Drive Zip drives are fine if you already own one, yet since they hold only 250 MB of data are being replaced by cheaper solutions with larger data storage capacity.

CD ROMs
CD-RW disks hold about 650 MB of data and can be over written many times. However, CDs need to be 'burned' manually, can be slow, and will not fit your whole hard drive.

External Hard Drive
New hard drives hold 10 GB or more. This solution works best if you have a modern PC with a USB port. After you back up, you can take the drive home with you.

Tape Drive
Tape drives hold 20 GB of data, enough to backup your entire hard drive, yet are quite expensive and require installation by a technical professional. Often these manual back-up methods take too long for busy or forgetful employees.

Remote Automatic Data Back Up
This saves the time and hassle of manual back ups, the cost hardware and storage media and you never have to remember to back up anymore. More importantly, it ensures business owners a piece of mind, that their data will always be safe in the event of a hardware failure, or more likely employees forgetting to back up.

BookingCenter has responded to this need by including Remote Automatic Data Back Up in Version 5.

BookingCenter Version 5 customers with an active support contract can use Remote Automatic Data Back Up. Every evening, a copy of their data file is automatically uploaded to secure servers.

To learn how to add this service to your property, see http://www.bookingcenter.com/products/modules/remote_backup.html or contact sales@bookingcenter.com for more complete details.

The Power of Email Marketing in the Hospitality Industry: Developing a Total Email Marketing Strategy

The Boston Consulting Group describes the marketing power of the Internet in terms of reach and frequency. Nowhere is this better illustrated than through email marketing. Following the lead of the airlines, many hospitality managers are evaluating email marketing for its low cost, rapid dissemination, and measurability. As many marketers have demonstrated, a well-executed email strategy can produce results. It can strengthen existing market share while at the same time reach new markets to boost revenues, particularly online-generated revenues. Click here for the complete article.

The Blizzard Report: The Importance of Your Website

One very important but often neglected element of a good website design is its navigation system. It is not enough to simply increase the total number of visitors to your website - you need to have a well designed navigation system that encourages visitors to browse through the pages, and helps them to contact you easily to request a reservation. The ease with which visitors navigate your website is a huge factor in how many lookers convert to bookers. Poorly designed and implemented navigation will handicap your website, frustrate visitors, and waste your precious marketing dollars. Click here for the complete article.