Pegasus aids hotel web distribution

Free access to extra value-added services is to be offered to customers of hotel representation services Utell and Unirez by Pegasus. 

The offer is part of a focus on making internet distribution easier for independent hotels and helping them increase their revenue and average daily room-rate.

It includes free access to the Pegasus’ RateChecker™ service for a year and no set-up fee for the Pegasus Internet Booking Engine (IBE).

RateChecker allows hotels to monitor and compare competitors’ rates online, while the Pegasus NetBookerLink IBE allows a hotel to receive bookings online from its own website and manage its rates through the central reservation system.

The US technology services’ company’s sales senior vice president Gideon Dean said: “Our internet services, combined with our competitive pricing, our wide variety of distribution partners and our demand generation activities, demonstrate Pegasus’ commitment to giving customers easier access to the kind of services they need to compete in today’s increasingly competitive online business environment.”

He noted that a recent study by Jupiter Research said that online travel bookings in the US grew by 25% over the past year and that consumers are booking more than half of their travel this year directly on supplier websites.

“Worldwide, the growth is even greater,” he said, citing PhoCusWright data that shows international gross bookings for online travel agencies increasing by 115% this year.

“By providing accessible and cost-effective ways to reach potential guests, no matter where they are, we are arming our hotel customers with what they need to compete as well as actually increase their ADR and overall revenue,” added Dean.

Utell by Pegasus hotels will also benefit from new and innovative proprietary tools that Pegasus has developed to allow properties to monitor rates and review distribution with their account service managers. 

“These tools give us better insight into our customers’ businesses and can help drive more reservations and revenue,” Dean claimed. “We understand that just hooking up hotels to distribution channels is not enough. It takes continuous analysis and knowledge of the dynamics of the market to make a real difference.”

The company’s data from 2004 shows that hotels who used the Utell by Pegasus representation service received 30% more reservations resulting in 70% more revenue than non-member hotels.

At the same time, the Unirez by Pegasus global portfolio’s average reservation value has increased by nearly 20% in 2005, Dean said.

Recent data shows that Utell by Pegasus hotels in the US have increased their ADR by 9.2 year-to-date over 2004; those in the UK saw a 4% increase; in France, there was a 3.8% increase; in India the increase was 23%; and in Singapore 15%.

Report by Phil Davies