NORTHWIND – Maestro Enables Operators to Increase Revenue with Mobile Presence & Web 2.0 Capability

Mobile Room Bookings Forecasted to Reach $160 Million in 2010; Mobile-Ready Operators Benefit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - September 9, 2010

NORTHWIND, provider of Maestro™ Enterprise Property Management hotel software and reservation software solutions for the industry’s leading independent hotel, resorts, and multi-property groups, announced it is supplying users of Maestro PMS’s ResWave online booking engine with a complete mobile microsite presence to increase revenue from smartphone users and to facilitate greater interaction and booking from Web 2.0 social media channels.

“NORTHWIND is helping its clients benefit from the huge increase in smartphone usage by travelers,” said Warren Dehan, president of NORTHWIND-Maestro PMS. “We are delivering a complete mobile web presence to hotels that do not have their own mobile initiative.”

Maestro lets guests reserve rooms with their smartphones via the ResWave booking engine, and now they can also view a property’s homepage and other merchandising pages to convert more visitors. Dehan noted the new mobile offering includes a geolocating/GPS capability that enables guests to find the hotel location from a directions page on the mobile site and can instantly link visitors to their favorite Web 2.0/social media sites, as well as to property review sites like TripAdvisor.

Mobile usage and Web 2.0 will have a huge impact on operators “Smartphone travel related usage has more than doubled over the last few years and is expected to surpass $160 million from mobile sources in 2010,” said Dehan. “Mobile usage, combined with Web 2.0 and social media, will have a huge impact on operators.”

Mobile web access will surpass PCs by 2013 Gartner Research predicts mobile web access from smartphones will surpass traditional PCs by 2013. NORTHWIND’s new mobile offering enables operators to leverage this trend to capture more reservations from mobile users. Maestro’s new mobile web offering includes a property micro site with three to five pages of property descriptions and images, provides geolocating/GPS capability, and is optimized for mobile viewing to convert smartphone users. The new mobile web presence initiative complements Maestro’s ResWave online booking engine which is already mobile enabled.

Dehan noted that marketing is more complicated for hotel operators today. Geolocating apps enable smartphone users to shop hotels by area, so NORTHWIND provides its mobile offering with links to Google maps for faster property location to attract more business. Additionally, Maestro’s Web 2.0 and social media functionality enables shoppers to join conversations on social media sites and even book rooms from a property’s Facebook site with ResWave. “As smartphones continue to enhance the on-the-go lifestyles of guests, it is essential that operators’ marketing efforts evolve to include mobile capability,” said Dehan. “With researchers predicting that U.S. mobile phone subscribers will reach 308.7 million by 2013, which translates to 96.7% of the population, mobile shopping is a trend hotels can utilize for greater revenue.”

NORTHWIND provides mobile strategy training NORTHWIND-Maestro will provide its users with personalized training sessions on how to leverage the mobile shopping trend and create Web 2.0 strategies at its Maestro 2010 Users' Conference - Beyond PMS. The conference takes place September 20-23, 2010 at the Water's Edge Resort & Spa in Westbrook, Connecticut

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