Expedia has announced the launch of Expedia
QuickConnect, a reservation system interface that allows hotel partners
to easily and efficiently link property management and central reservation
systems to Expedia.Through Expedia QuickConnect, independent hotels and
small- to medium-size hotel chain partners can now easily automate the
exchange of room, rate and booking information with Expedia, Inc. sites.
  Expedia QuickConnect allows a wider range of hotel partners to benefit
from the cost, speed, accuracy and security advantages of direct
connectivity with Expedia’s reservation system and enables hotel partners
to strategically manage their reservation office by monitoring their room
availability more accurately in real time. In addition, Expedia
QuickConnect helps increase customer bookings to a property by allowing the
hotel partner to offer a wider range of room types while also decreasing
costs by eliminating the need to input bookings from fax reservations.
  “Expedia QuickConnect is a win-win for our guests and for our hotel,”
said Rob Gauthier, managing director of Parc Fifty Five, San Francisco.
“Our guests have real-time access to Parc Fifty Five’s guest room
availability, enabling them, for the first time, to book and confirm their
preferred room, even at the last minute. Making reservations online is more
seamless and hassle-free than ever before, and we can better manage room
inventory, giving Parc Fifty Five a tighter hold on our revenue
management.”
  Expedia QuickConnect was developed to be less complex than standard
customized integration projects. The new platform, designed with
independent properties and small- to medium-size hotel chains in mind,
enables all qualified Expedia Special Rate (ESR) hotel partners to quickly
and easily access a full-featured application programming interface (API)
with searchable specifications and sample code to facilitate deployment.
  “We are very excited to be the first North American company to deploy
our two-way interface between RSI’s RoomKey(TM) property management
solution and Expedia QuickConnect,” said Charles Ku, president of RSI, a
Web-based property management and reservation systems provider. “We can now
offer our hotel clients one of the best sales distribution channels
available on the Web, which will increase their market penetration,
generate higher conversions and increase online sales revenue. Our two-way
interface also eliminates manual room availability, rate management upload
and reservation download as it is fully automated from guest reservation to
guest check-out after their stay.”
  “Expedia QuickConnect is yet another example of Expedia’s commitment to
make it easier for our hotel partners to do business with us worldwide,”
said Michael Reichartz, vice president of business development, Americas
lodging, Expedia. “We distilled years of integration experience into an
innovative, easy-to-use platform when we developed Expedia QuickConnect. As
a result, more of our partners, regardless of their size, can take
advantage of direct connectivity, which can in turn mean additional
customer exposure to their hotel rooms and increased bookings.”
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