DALLAS -- Sol
Melia and Marriott tapped Pegasus Solutions to facilitate group
room bookings from wholesalers and tour operators.
The two chains
join a growing list of hotels that have signed agreements with
Pegasus, a firm that specializes in providing technology and
services to hotels and travel distributors, to utilize its PegsTour
service to handle room bookings from wholesalers.
The PegsTour
technology will enable us to improve our relationships with these
companies as well as with the guests that come to our hotels, said
Javier Silvestre, Sol Melias vice president of distribution. The
automation of those reservations will also help us to manage and
develop our tour business.
PegsTour is
designed to enable the contracted, allocation-based bookings
typically made between hotels and tour operators.
According to
Pegasus, PegsTour serves tour operators by automating certain
booking processes through an electronic interface that connects
them to a hotels central reservations system, achieving
connectivity between disparate hotel and operator
technologies.
Furthermore, the
electronic system eliminates the need for a wholesaler to phone,
fax or e-mail requests for hotel bookings.
The result is a
real-time electronic delivery of reservations, including
modifications and cancellations, to a hotels central reservations
system and property management system.
Marriott
David Marriott,
senior vice president of global and field sales for Marriott
International, said, The automation afforded by PegsTour will
assist tour wholesalers in developing tomorrows strategies and will
help their staff and Marriott properties save a great deal of time
and improve efficiencies.
The global
leisure travel purchasing options are changing for consumers and
wholesaler product offerings must be expanded to meet these new
needs, Marriott said. We want our tour operators to use the
service, and we are promoting it to them actively.
Pegasus COO Bob
Boles said, We are thrilled that Marriott has joined us to help
develop, use and promote the PegsTour service. The success of the
service will depend on industry participation from hotels and
wholesalers. We have already signed a large number of
both.
In addition to
Marriott and Sol Melia, Charming Hotels, Hilton International,
Kimpton Hotels, Le Meridien Hotels and Thistle Hotels are PegsTour
participants.
Wholesaler
participants include Ctrip, Exodus Distribution & Procurement
Services, Tournet, HotelBeds, Flairview Travel, CoachQuote.com,
Olympia Viaggi and TravelNewYork.com.
To contact
reporter Michael Milligan, send e-mail to [email protected].