Congratulations Jomardi Club WHL market place operator

CONGRATULATIONS
Jomardi Adventure Club for Selection as World Hotel Link (WHL) Market Place Operator.

GTA member company Jomardi Club, the Georgian Outdoor and Adventure Experts, was selected as Market Place Operator for World hotel link, a worldwide network of booking platforms for guesthouses and sustainable tourism activities. http://www.whl.travel/

WHL Georgia booking platform http://www.travel-tbilisi.com/

International Online Hotel Booking Systems Project

International Online Hotel Booking Systems
A project in cooperation with USAID’s SME Support Project

by Georgian Tourism Association (GTA) 3rd July 2008

Why register with International Online Hotel Booking Systems?

The future of hotel reservation in individual and business travel is online booking. The experience and the position of international online booking systems on the world market for hotel reservations are attractive for Georgian Hotels & Guesthouses for registration with several of the market leading systems. The increased visibility in the search engines make international systems advantageous compared to smaller national booking systems.

Which international systems?

hrs.com (Hotel Reservation System): the biggest in Europe, 360.000.000 page impressions on website per year, 12.000 operating companies, booking facility on more than 6000 internet pages, 31 languages and 225.000 Hotels registered worldwide. Clear procedures, good to start with: commission 10%, full payment made in the hotel, hotel administration system on the hrs-website after registration. Very cooperative. Interesting for small hotels due to flexible procedures. www.hrs.com

hotels.com: a very active booking system in terms of publicity “my hotel”, “wake up happy”. 80.000 hotels worldwide, 25 languages. Pre-registration easy (a little tricky), communication & cooperation are less easy. www.hotels.com

booking.com: 18 languages, 45000 hotels in 67 countries, 240.000.000 site visitors per year, 10,9 million room nights booked in 2006. Pre-Registration form is quite detailed (9 pages) making registration not so easy, final contract takes a lot of time (recommended as second or third booking system). www.booking.com

tobook.com: similar procedures as hrs.com; 10 % commission on finalized reservations, full payment at the hotel (secured by credit card number). Registration process is easy, with registration form, monthly invoice for commissions from tobook. More problems on website than others. www.tobook.com

whl.travel: international booking systems network committed to Sustainable Tourism and promoting a “Caring for the destination” approach. Active in more than 30 countries. Target group are individual travelers. Enables small guesthouses and hotels without own internet access to be booked online through a Market Place Operator (MPO). Especially interesting for hotels in regions of Georgia. www.whl.travel and www.travel-tbilisi.com

What is the service of Georgian Tourism Association (GTA)?

Georgian Tourism Association (GTA) offers hands on support with registration procedures, cooperation of hotels/guesthouses and tour companies and membership in GTA for hotels & guesthouses.
www.tourism-association.ge

Press release: Hotel Booking Systems Project

Press release: 1st of July 2008

Putting Georgian Hotels on the world map of tourism
Georgian Tourism Association (GTA) facilitates registration of Georgian Hotels with international hotel booking systems.

Presentation: Thursday, 3rd July, 16 hours, Courtyard Marriott Ballroom.

With support of USAID SME project Georgian Tourism Association (GTA) has accomplished an innovative pilot project to support the access of Georgian Hotels & Guesthouses to the growing individual tourism market; the rising clientele of people who plan their vacation using the internet instead of buying package tours.

Before the project the renowned international booking systems, like hrs.com, hotels.com, expedia.com, bookings.com, tobook.com and whl.travel who are dominating the internet search engines had no or very little representatives in Georgia, apart from big hotel chains and a few pioneering hotels. This was one of the factors that made the country a difficult place to go on your own. Today the situation starts to be different.
In addition, through the cooperation with World Hotel Link (WHL), an international hotel booking network (whl.travel), the tourism association has created opportunities for guesthouses in remote, rural areas without internet access to be booked online. From now onwards Georgia is part of a worldwide network promoting the development of Sustainable Tourism.

The pilot project has supported interested hotels with hands on registration at selected booking systems and focused not only on luxury hotels but also small & medium sized hotels and guesthouses.

“Usually the problem is rather a language barrier and a difficulty to understand the very detailed procedures of different systems and not the lack of managerial skills”, recalls Beka Natsvlishvili, executive manager of Georgian Tourism Association (GTA), who helped the hotels during the process. After a short period of training on the job and the first experiences the hotel managers are normally able to handle several booking systems without further support.This is -together with an attractive offer- the key factor for success. Natsvlishvili: “Some hotels with very attractive offers had bookings in the first week after registration. Others have to register with four or more booking systems to have a constant flow of bookings. But in the long run every experienced hotel has been satisfied with the step on the international level.”

Thursday’s presentation is a starting point for future activities of Georgian Tourism Association: After completion of the pilot project, GTA invites hotels & guesthouses to become members of the association and offers support with booking systems. Furthermore GTA promotes the cooperation of hotels and tourism companies.
There is much scope for positive developments in Georgia to the benefit of stakeholders in Tbilisi as well as in the regions.

Presentation: Thursday 3rd of July, 16 hours, Courtyard Marriott Ballroom

Contact:
Georgian Tourism Association (GTA)
Beka Natsvlishvili (executive manager) mob. 899388235 or
Steffen Schuelein (advisor) mob. 895158869
Melikishvili Str. 18/II
0179 Tbilisi
www.tourism-association.ge
info@tourism-association.ge