What if I told you that within 30 minutes you could set up your entire hotel inventory, payment system and advertise it on websites accessing over 2 million visitors a month for free, would you want to? Read on!

VIPvillas.com advertise small boutique hotels and luxury private villas around the world. The company has developed a booking system that allows seamless integration with some of the biggest internet players to keep your inventory upto date on several websites at once without having to update them individually yourself! It’s as easy as 1,2,3 with no technical skills provided.

The system allows you to place bookings through it yourself and with no initial sign up fees or ongoing support costs the system is risk free! If you don’t like it you can switch it off as quickly as you switched it on! Simple. Easy. Free. Three fantastic words!

Andy Parr the company’s MD is very excited about the developments, “With the necessity to take short notice bookings even more important now in this economic climate, our system allows you to display your inventory live and take credit and debit card payments at the click of a button. Our system is protected to the highest security standards and ensures you can manage your empty weeks to fill them last minute through us and our payments system. It’s as easy as 1,2,3 with no technical skills needed.”

There are many reports from the big players like, TUI, Thomas Cook and others reporting shorter ‘look to book’ times with consumers searching for holiday bargains, Andy says, “if your bookings are down you need to be able to advertise last  minute deals and our system will do that for you to an audience of over 2 million a month. You can be set up inside an hour and live on the net selling. Our current launch offer only extends for one more month so those that want to get onboard need to do so quickly.”

Despite the current ‘chill’ in the marketplace, industry experts are urging hospitality bosses not to cut down on staff investment.

‘I believe the next two or three years will be a lot harder,’ said one at the recent Face to Face event at the Dorchester on Park Lane, ‘There’s always a temptation to make cuts and trim training. Ultimately training your staff is what improves your profitability and drives volumes in your business, and given the difficult economic times, good service is always desirable.’

One particular area of training that cannot be overlooked is that of I.T. – quite often one of the most demanding and potentially rewarding areas of any hotel’s operation.

With PMS and EPoS systems acting as tools for an industry with a reputation for high staff turnover, it is essential that employers are kept abreast of the features at their disposal.

Here at Welcome, we strive to develop software solutions which lend themselves to an industry with ever changing needs and personnel.

Our Welcome 21st PMS is regarded as one of the easiest to use in the industry, offering the unique ability for senior staff at hotels to pass training on internally.

However, refresher training courses can still be hugely beneficial, and for that reason, we are happy to offer training both on site and at our offices in Northampton, for any of our products.

Should you wish to make more use of your stock control system, improve your customer relations with marketing campaigns or simply receive a further insight into the many benefits our solutions can bring your business, why not give us a call today on 0845 4582121 to discuss the options, or visit our website at http://www.welcome-computers.co.uk to see our range of hotel booking software.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Readers of the latest edition of Caterer and Hotelkeeper will no doube have stumbled across an article highlighting the benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS).

‘This increasingly popular model sees computer applications hosted by suppliers and delivered to users all over the internet,’ writes Ross Bentley. ‘Whereas traditionally customers would pay a license fee for owning each piece of software, with SaaS they are simply charged for what they use.’

Here at Welcome, we recognise the increased demand for cost effective hotel software solutions, particularly from the smaller end of the market. Our own SaaS, Welcome Anywhere Level One addresses this need.

Designed specifically for smaller establishments who do not have the budget or need for a full property managment system, Welcome Anywhere Level One provides a booking diary, customer database and, crucially, online booking direct from the hotel’s website. All this functionality can be provided from as little as £35 + vat per month. Further options including secure credit card storage, interfaces to EPoS and integrated post code look up further inhance it’s capabilities.

Ross continues: ‘By 2012, at least one-third of business application software spending will be as service subscription instead of product license. The SaaS model of deployment and distribution of software services will enjoy steady growth in mainstream use during the next five years.’

It’s hard to disagree with Ross’ surmise; the St Austell Brewery group have recently rolled out our Welcome Anywhere solution to a number of their smaller establishments, to great effect (more details here).

Of course, the same doesn’t hold true for everyone looking for hotel management software, and for that reason, we still offer our highly popular Welcome 21st PMS for those sites requiring full property management and the option of having their database on site.

As always, whatever the size of your business, we have something to suit you. For more information regarding our range of hotel booking software please visit our website at http://www.welcome-computers.co.uk.