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Steady Progress at Sonesta What’s the impact of technology on sales & marketing? “That’s easy,” says Carol Beggs, Vice President of Technology at Sonesta International Hotels Corp. “There are so many choices and opportunities that it's almost overwhelming! We’re looking at an ever-increasing number of channels, all of which carry the potential for bringing in more business, especially from overseas markets. But that very abundance means that we have to make some hard choices on which ones to focus on and manage. It’s now almost essential to employ a marketing technology niche specialist on staff.” And indeed, Sonesta does now have a Director of Interactive Marketing. “We are seeing many positives,” says Beggs. “We’re upgrading our Sales & Catering systems to a Windows-based product (Daylight’s enterprise), which will eventually incorporate RFP response functions. And in the US we’re beginning to implement Springer-Miller’s SMS|World PMS/Internet interface with rate management, especially as it lets us tailor Web pages for group code, travel agent IATA number or corporate code entry to access specific blocks. We’re also working with Wyntrac to set up individual Websites for our groups; it’s effective, easy to set up and gives us good, real-time data on pick-up progress.” What would you like to see coming next? “More flexibility on availability searches would be great, automatically offering a choice of alternatives around the requester’s original parameters that would give a better deal for both the client and the property. But above all we could use better system interfacing and data filtering between our existing systems and all the new channels. For now we can hire more staff to handle it, and train them well, but that's clearly a short-term solution. The systems are getting better at it themselves all the time.”
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Jon Inge and Associates |