GuestCentric Systems has announced the launch of the first easy-to-use online marketing and distribution platform for independent hotels. Based on GuestCentric’s patent-pending InstantHotel technology, hotel managers can now have a complete website up and running in less than one hour, complete with new offerings and promotions. With GuestCentric’s platform, independent hotels are now for the first time able to provide the rich online and offline experience that demanding guests expect without entering time-consuming and expensive customization projects.

Hotels are under pressure to leverage the Internet as a distribution and marketing channel with customers. While large, high-end hotel chains have large budgets and strong brand recognition for global distribution, non-chain mid-market and smaller, independent hotels are left stranded on how to manage this new reality of more demanding guests without the resources or budgets for new software suites or expensive custom development. Recent studies have indicated that the lackluster adoption of online distribution by independents has been driven from a fear of online cancellations and not being able to deal with floods of email, lack of trust in guest’s information coming over the Internet, and reconciling online and offline reservations.

“Things are about to get tougher. Sobering economic conditions and a mature online market are forcing independent hotel managers to rethink their products and distribution strategies,” said Pedro Colaco, President and CEO of GuestCentric Systems. “To remain independent, hotel managers must adopt new, more intelligent tools that enable them to focus on their core business and differentiate through products instead of being tied down by technology that served them well in the past but is not fit for today’s market conditions.”
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