CIBER has been selected to develop four property-direct e-commerce web sites and
two e-commerce web portals for Elite Island Resorts.“Property-direct”
sites link the reservation booking transaction directly to the resort
instead of working through a third party, such as Expedia or Orbitz. For
this reason, property-direct sites provide significant cost savings for the
resort.

Elite Island Resorts is a leader in the travel and hospitality
industry, owning and managing a number of properties in the Caribbean,
including higher-end resorts on Antigua and the Grenadines. Elite also
provides marketing services to other higher-end resorts on Tortola and St.
Lucia.

  CIBER launched the first of the web sites in October for the Verandah
Resort and Spa, an eco-friendly 200-room luxury family resort that opened
on Oct. 19 in Antigua.

  For the project, CIBER will provide web site design and development
services, content management services, and advanced search engine marketing
(ASEM) services, including recurrent organic optimization, pay-per-click
management, social marketing and detailed e-commerce reporting through
CIBER’s advanced analytics offerings. The work will be performed by CIBER’s
Travel and Hospitality Practice, which is based out of CIBER’s Orlando,
Fla. office.

  Recognizing the revenue and profit potential of effective e-commerce,
Elite selected CIBER to replace existing web sites with CIBER’s design and
development services and to provide advanced search engine optimization
methodologies, which should greatly enhance Elite’s positioning within
search engine listings. CIBER e-commerce services will provide more
detailed reporting and expanded data harvesting and customer relations
management capabilities to Elite for the company’s recurrent experiential
direct marketing initiatives.

  “CIBER’s high-quality design capabilities, disciplined delivery
methodologies and in-depth hospitality e-commerce experience really
impressed us,” said Mark Klayman, Vice President for E-Commerce at Elite
Island Resorts. “CIBER demonstrated the highest levels of expertise with
hospitality search engine marketing and the newest technologies available,
including 3G, or the third generation of search marketing. Their search
engine marketing program will help us lower acquisition costs and create
more customized vacation experiences for our guests. This is a critical
initiative for our resort portfolio and we eagerly anticipate the results
the new sites and advanced search engine marketing services will generate.”

  Travel and hospitality companies, such as hotels, airlines, and cruise
lines, for example, promote their services through numerous channels—
their own web sites, the global distribution system, third-party sites such
as Travelocity, Expedia, Hotels.com, and search engines such as Google,
Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com. When customers book a reservation through a
third-party site, the travel and hospitality company must pay a fee to the
third party that may be as high as 40% of the total booking revenue.
However, when guests book directly through the company’s site, no
commissions or transactional fees are required, thereby reducing
acquisition costs to as low as 2-5%. CIBER’s advanced search engine
marketing services will help Elite direct more customers to their
proprietary web sites and away from the more costly third-party sites and
other distribution channels, thereby producing greater top-line profit.

  “We are delighted to be selected by Elite to lead this important
initiative,” said Don Bosworth, CHA, and Director of Business Development
for CIBER’s Travel and Hospitality Practice. “In addition to the cost
savings provided by our advanced search engine marketing services, Elite
will benefit from having greater control of guest data. This will enable
Elite and CIBER to scale direct experiential marketing programs involving
customized vacation itineraries and packages to guests that visit the web
sites and demonstrate interest in various Caribbean activities. We are
confident Elite will be very pleased with the results we generate.”
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