G-wiz Xtra Launching at ITB
FEBRUARY 29, 2008. Great Hotels Organisation has announced it will launch G-wiz Xtra, a new booking engine for hotel chain websites, to the hotel industry at this year's ITB in Berlin.
An extension of the existing G-wiz website booking engine, which is perfect for individual hotels' websites, G-wiz Xtra has been specifically designed to address the fact many hotel chain websites are currently unable to offer multi-property availability searches.
Current in-house research by GHO estimates that around 36% of hotel chains' websites do not have a real time booking engine and 20% of those that do, still do not have a multi-property booking function. This results in a great potential for lost bookings and is something G-wiz Xtra will address.
The most important feature of G-wiz Xtra is its ability to allow multi-property searching within a single destination. For the guest, this means that all chain hotels within a single destination will be returned under a single date search, allowing them to select the most appropriate hotel rates or easily select an alternative hotel within the destination should their first preference be unavailable. For the hotel, the ability to offer multiple options for a traveller's chosen dates in one single screen search not only helps to cross-sell rooms but also enhances the guests' booking experience.
The function can be used to run searches at a city or country level or even for guests with set dates but no specific destination in mind. The extra call centre functionality also means this same inventory is available to offline voice booking channels too.
Carly Gotz, Group Director Business Development at GHO, commented: "We identified a gap in the market for a hotel chain website booking engine so after the success of G-wiz, this seemed the obvious next development for the product. The pricing system will take its lead from G-wiz, where hotels can choose either a flat fee or commission based structure, making G-wiz Xtra the cost-effective solution to the difficulty hotel chains have faced in taking full advantage of the online booking trend until now."
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