Sabre Hospitality Solutions Guest Connect Booking Engine was released in 2008 and quickly became the hotel booking engine by which all booking engines were judged.  With thousands hotels using Guest Connect to generate almost USD two billion in room revenue last year, the designers and developers at Sabre Hospitality Solutions had an abundance of experience along with true customer feedback to draw from when working on its most recent re-design. 

“Consumers today are presented with increasing choices online. In many cases, the research and booking experience can be overwhelming and confusing,” commented Kristie Goshow, vice president of marketing for Sabre Hospitality Solutions.  “The new comparison shopping feature along with some other usability items like sorting and filtering provide a truly rich but simple user journey, thereby helping hoteliers increase sales from their branded websites.”

Referred to as Guest Connect Flex, the newest version utilizes all of the original merchandising functionality like promotional pricing, dynamic packaging and itinerary bookings but adds a new streamlined layout.  In-depth market research and usability studies resulted in new features such as comparison shopping, enhanced image galleries with larger photos and “share with” tags to enhance the user experience.

As part of Sabre’s SynXis Central Reservation System (CRS), Guest Connect allows for easy management of room and rate distribution. Embedded tracking tools make it easy to measure ROI for all of your online marketing campaigns. Other innovative features of Guest Connect Flex include:

31 languages supported including right-to-left support for Arabic
*  Total pricing reveals final price including taxes and extra charges to mirror other consumer travel sites
*  Easy to read availability calendars that can be customized with rates and stay restrictions
*  Reservation review or confirmation on a single page allows the flexibility for guests to opt for their own experience based on their preferences
*  Room Group functionality accommodates properties with a large number of products
*  Expandable/collapsible product and package results
*  Shopping results can be filtered based on room type, price, rate plan or room feature

A property or chain’s Website is such an integral part of its business that it is critical to have a booking engine that can convert shoppers to bookers, and usability plays a huge role in making that happen,” said Tom Coulthurst, director of product marketing for Sabre Hospitality Solutions.  “We have focused a tremendous amount of resources on Guest Connect over the past few years and I am excited for the industry to experience its newest version which combines innovative technology and processes with usability research and best practices.”