Trust International Reconvenes Trust Customer Advisory Board

Hotel Groups Exchange Revenue Generating Ideas and Share Perspectives

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. November 19, 2009

FRANKFURT, Germany, November 18, 2009 - Upholding a 20-year tradition that sets it apart from its competitors, Trust International hosted its Customer Advisory Board (CAB) Meeting with hoteliers from around the world to discuss best practices and revenue-generating ideas for electronic distribution.
About 60 attendees representing hotel groups and industry experts participated in the launch of Trust's “experience better business” campaign in conjunction with the rollout of Trust's yourVoyager central reservation system (CRS) to the industry. With the first customers already actively operating the system, the group used the CAB to get a detailed “live” look at the new yourVoyager platform. Unique in the industry, yourVoyager provides hotels with customized views of how they are doing day-to-day and places the broadest array of concepts and tools at their fingertips exactly as the customer wants them displayed and exactly how the hotel group or the individual hotel wants to see it.

CAB attendees also had the opportunity to discuss various rate optimization and distribution strategies and how to stabilize bookings during challenging times, with a special focus on digital strategies for marketing and online reputation management and internet distribution strategies.

“It is more important than ever to assist our customers with advice and analysis that can help their businesses at the moment and enable them to prepare for the inevitable upturn in the economy,” noted Richard Wiegmann, managing director, Trust International. “Meeting people face to face is still very important for a good business relationship and we are very proud and happy that so many of our customers and business partners were able to join us to maintain this tradition that sets us apart in the industry. It is their input and participation which makes the Customer Advisory Board such a success and helps us set the right direction for future developments to help our customers experience better business.”

The lively panel discussion on Internet distribution was one of the highlights of the educational sessions. It tied in closely with the day's presentations on online reputation management, how hotels can handle the manifold reviews they get via the Web, latest Web marketing opportunities and how rates and room descriptions influence the customer buying decisions.

“It was a great meeting and we very much appreciated the exchange with Trust's people as well as with fellow hoteliers and market experts,” said Toshi Banshoya, Director of Distribution Marketing, New Otani Hotels. “It was helpful to see the connection between Trust's yourVoyager CRS portal and the industry presentations on managing social media and crafting user-friendly rate and room descriptions for Internet distribution channels.”

As part of the day's give and take format, Trust illustrated how numerous hotel groups are benefiting from its 360°consultative approach that includes rate audits and analysis of how the hotel groups work internally and with the market to develop rate strategies. Barbara Stockebrand, Manager of Electronic Distribution CRS, Dorint Hotels, said, “As a first-time attendee, we appreciated the open atmosphere and the many opportunities to exchange experiences with colleagues from other hotel groups, as well as discovering the many new opportunities that are available to us for implementation via our partnership with Trust.”