by Ed Rubinstein, Contributing Editor

Increasingly, hotels are looking at conferences and meetings to boost their bottom lines and technology is aiding in those efforts. Fortunately, the development of tight interfaces between sales and catering applications and other strategic platforms is simplifying group booking and adding to the bottom line.

 For example, property management systems with built-in S&C modules have greater flexibility when it comes to routing billing instructions and charging for special services. And, links to revenue management ensure profitability by allowing hotels to compare the displacement costs associated with various arrival dates. Meanwhile, online tools are making event planning easier and keeping rates and room inventories in sync with central reservations systems. 

Web-based integration

Boca Resort & Club in Boca Raton, Florida, which operates the 1,041-room namesake resort, the newly-renovated Registry Resort at Pelican Bay and the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Naples, Florida, has learned how to take advantage of such seamless integration and advanced uses of the Web. 

Boca Resorts is using the Delphi enterprise solution from Newmarket (www.newmarket.com), which interfaces to Bocais UNIX-based property management system being used at its Boca Raton property, the HIS (www.hotelinfosys.com) property-management system at the Registry, as well as Bocais revenue-management software from OPUS 2 (www.micros.com/opus).

On the online fronts, group managers can respond to RFPs using Delphiis www.netmeeting.com tool. Taking the Web to the next level this fall, the operator will install the interface to the Internet-based booking engine from Passkey (http://www.passkey.com), which is offered as a monthly subscription service based on the number of rooms.

Passkey lets users build registration and housing lists online, eliminating the need for meeting planners to re-key data into another system. For example, as attendees register for a meeting online, that information is sent to the PMS and CRS systems of all three Boca Resorts properties. As that happens, rates and room inventories are sent from Delphi to Passkey and the CRS systems. The Delphi application will be updated with the group pickup via interfaces to the property-management system. 

Data bridge

Boca Resortsi CIO Jon Carres contends that having Delphi data accessible within the groupis personalized website will transform the way group reservations will be handled by Boca Resorts in the future. "They'll be able to manage groups rather than manage data."

A key component of Passkey is an application programming interface (API) called RegLink that bridges the data between meeting-registration systems and Passkeyis solution. If a group is using a meeting-registration product, it can require attendees to book the conference first and then his or her room. "This will give us the flexibility to do it either way and save a huge amount of time," states Carres.

It will also let group reservations do what they do best -- manage groups and interact more with meeting planners. Historically, group sales has had to focus on reservations that occur over the next two weeks but the integrated solution gives them the ability to work with meeting planners much farther out. And it gives Boca Resorts opportunities to service the customer over a longer time frame. "We can open the event website but control when we want to make it open for reservations at the property level," Carres adds.

Hotel operators that have set their sights on expansion either via acquisition or new development are also asking for more flexibility from their sales and catering solutions providers.  

The Melrose place case

Melrose Hotels, whose luxury properties cater to business travelers in New York, Dallas and Washington, D.C., recently installed a Daylight Software (www.daylightsoftware.com) system. 

 "We found that the solution is very flexible with respect to interfacing to other applications and the Internet," says David Bell, corporate director of IT for Melrose Hotels.

For example, Bell notes that Daylight was "willing to work" with Melrose to link with its Micros (www.micros.com) PMS and an online booking engine, which should be running in early 2004. "The Web is where everything is going because it makes technology invisible to end-users and lets our folks that sell to do just that," he adds.

The age of easier integration has also prompted many PMS vendors, like Northwind (www.maestropms.com) Visual One Systems (www.visualonesystems.com), and Micros to add fully integrated S&C modules to solutions. Take Vintage Inns, which operates four resorts in and around Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. The properties average occupancy rates of 70 percent and up and last year generated revenues north of $50 million.

After putting out an RFP last year, Vintage installed the Maestro PMS, a decision that was driven by the group sales side because sales and catering represents about 60 percent of Vintageis business, according to sales and marketing director Allen Gelberg. "We wanted to work off of one database with no interfaces," he remarks.  Near term, Vintage Inns will leverage its IT investment by extending the Maestro solution to its spa and it is working to develop its own online  reservations engine.

Powered by the improved connection between systems and cross selling potential, Vintage and other hotels are re-examining the power of S&C apps.