Frustrated NYC Best Western GM Gives Manual Channel Mgmt the Axe

The proliferation of online booking channels has been a boon for smaller hotels, giving them the ability to compete against larger properties on an even playing field. But for hoteliers charged with managing those channels, the technological revolution has also meant more time spent in front of computer monitors and less time doing what they do best: providing guests with world-class hospitality. Hotelier Robert Gaeta, general manager of New York City's Best Western Hospitality House hotel, even became so disenchanted with the frustrations of managing the many third-party channels that he wondered whether he could stay in the industry he so loves.

"I first got in the hotel business because I love working with people," Gaeta says. "Then came a time when computers started being prevalent where I felt that maybe I needed to leave the hotel business because I was spending 90% of my time in front of a computer updating all these different websites—it was an all-day affair. But then I discovered EZYield."

EZYield.com, an automated online distribution management solution for the worldwide hospitality industry, and its web-based distribution platform, has helped to trim several hours off Gaeta's daily channel management routine, freeing him up to interact with guests and staff.

"It's a huge time-saver," he says. "Before EZYield, I'd have to go to each one of these websites and update it separately—log into each one individually, remember the passwords to each one, and then make the changes I just made to a dozen other websites over and over again. Now, with EZYield, I can just load the changes once and apply it across multiple channels with a single click—it's so much more convenient."

One EZYield.com function that is a favorite of Gaeta's is the EZSync tool. EZSync lets users copy yielding information that was previously published to one channel and automatically fill additional channels with the same information, making it easy to maintain rate parity across hundreds of distribution channels. Inventory availability, special promotions and nightly room rates can be adjusted either uniformly or one at a time, allowing for maximum flexibility and dramatically reducing the opportunity for input errors.

Because EZYield.com is a web-based platform, Gaeta can make adjustments to inventory allotment and rates in near real-time at any time. "That's not only a benefit of convenience for me, it's also a customer service issue," Gaeta says. "In the old days before EZYield, if we oversold a night and needed to close the inventory, we had to call up the different channels and tell them to take the inventory down, and there was a delay of up to 48 hours. During that time, other customers might end up booking a room that isn't actually available. Thanks to EZYield, that is no longer an issue."