Groundbreaking travel technology for hotels with iPhone apps
Tell-a-Friend(Berlin, Germany - 26 February 2010) Hotel bookings on the go – the first hotels in Europe have recently launched their own iPhone apps for mobile reservations. ‘Web to go’ is the most important gadget of the future of Web 2.0, and it is now available for every hotel. Internationally known travel technology specialist GIATA, from Berlin, Germany, provides an app for iPhones and all other smartphones with Internet access for only EUR 99 per month. ‘With this highly rated app tool, the hotel marketing manager can initialize more room bookings and target new guest groups using webcasting services, e.g. with accommodation vouchers,’ Michael Jarugski said. Mr. Jarugski is the sales manager of GIATA mbH. He joined the company on 1 March.
In the past, launching a proprietary iPhone app was an expensive marketing project and could cost up to 30,000 euros. Now more and more hotels use the TOURIAS tips&deals HotelGuide, such as the successful design hotel Adam & Eve in Belek, Turkey. The app tool has been built by GIATA in cooperation with TOURIAS Mobile, another German travel technology software firm. The corporate design of the hotel is transferred into the app and all important hotel managers are featured with their direct contact details. In addition, the Hotel App provides a tour guide, an interactive map and weather forecast. Searching for a hotel in a certain destination displays the Hotel App automatically. On every iPhone on which the Hotel App is installed, a webcasting service with specials offers, e.g. for weekend packages or dinner vouchers, is available.
‘By using this ultra-modern marketing tool, the hotel reaches new target groups and increases web bookings,’ Mr. Jarugski reported. Just one additional room reservation per month means that the technical fee is redeemed, he added. And that does not consider the enormous marketing effects.
GIATA is well experienced in modern iPhone apps. For the world’s greatest travel trade fair, the ITB Berlin, the ‘ITB Mobile Guide’ has been developed together with TOURIAS Mobile. ‘Since last year’s event we have been offering our visitors the ‘ITB Mobile Guide’, a modern and very beneficial iPhone app. It provides a fair ground map with navigation tool and the entire calendar of conferences, meetings and other official events. The ‘ITB Mobile Guide’ is free of charge and mostly installed on iPhones,’ said David Ruetz, Senior Manager of the ITB Berlin.
New sales power for GIATA
‘The development of a Hotel App generally takes just 2 weeks,’ Mr. Jarugski points out. The new sales manager at GIATA is well known in the European hotel industry. From 1 March 2010 he represents the travel technology developer. ‘For personal contact and discussions about mobile web booking, I invite all hoteliers to the ITB fair in Berlin,’ he concluded (GIATA at ITB Berlin: hall 6.1/booth 156, http://www.itb-berlin.com).
About GIATA: The travel technology specialist GIATA mbh was founded in 1996 in Kassel, Germany. Today, GIATA is based in the German capital Berlin with a staff of over 160. Owners are three private individuals and Sabre Holdings, Dallas TX. GIATA is one of the leading digital content providers of the global travel industry. Among more than 18,000 clients are tourism giants like TUI Group, Thomas Cook, Hotelopia, Expedia, Opodo and Lastminte.com. An additional service is the provision of rich media content from 220,000 international hotels to over 18,000 travel agencies, all CRS and GDS (Amadeus, Sabre, Worldspan, Galileo) and the most important IBE and travel booking platforms. Since the end of 2006, GIATA has been responsible for editing descriptions of 31,000 hotels (each in 8 different languages), hotel factsheets (each in 22 different languages) and hi-res hotel photos, available by XML. The ‘Mulilingual Hotel Content’ is used, for example, by hotelopia.com. More: http://www.giata.de/goto/mobile_hotelguide_en