A new blog entry in an new year - worn out by GDS and PMS discussions!

It's almost halfway through January and finally I'm finding time to update this blog. Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone and I hope that you all had a good festive period and are optimistic towards the outlook for 2010.

The reason I've been so delayed in writing this is because of exciting times at Complete Hotels Services. We are now very close to concluding a management contract on a 45 bedroom hotel in Birmingham and at the same time acquire a lease on a beautiful 9 bedroom country inn in Northamptonshire. I hope to be able to give more details in the next 3 to 4 weeks so watch this space. The last few weeks have been spent working on these deals and a lot of time has been dedicated to speaking to PMS suppliers and GDS representation companies. It amazing that whilst the suppliers ultimately all sell the same thing, albeit with different features and service levels, it was some years since I had done research into these two areas and the costs and the way that they are presented have surprised me.
In general the PMS costs seem to have reduced, probably because of web based solutions making savings on hardware, but the GDS representation services seem to still be as expensive as ever with many bookings likely to cost in excess of £10 per booking without including the origintaing agents commission!
When I decide who we select I'll let you know and if anyone out there is researching GDS and PMS systems then feel free to drop me a line at robert@completehotelsservices.co.uk

In addition to this we have been speaking with a number of potential clients about the services CHS offer and how we can work with them to acheive increased profits in 2010. In particular sales and marketing, and especially in the areas of web marketing and SEO.
I was delighted to see that according to Google analytics a clients website traffic had incrased by 90.5% year on year from 2008 to 2009. They haev certainly seen increased sales as a result.

Finally, tomorrow I'm attending one of my favourite annual events, the Hotel Booking Agents Association annual dinner and I'm looking forward to catching up with many old friends and colleagues and discussing many industry related issues. If you have any which you would like my opinion on then let me know by leaving a comment.

All the best
Robert Smith