This year’s ITB Berlin, the world’s largest and most influential travel trade show, takes place March 9^th – March 13^th. bookatonce will showcase many impressive features and surprising new developments. The ITB offers visitors the perfect forum to gather all information on the newest technological developments in the tourism and hospitality industry. With more than 180,000 visitors, and over 10,000 exhibitors from 180 countries ITB Berlin is the leading B2B-platform of all tourism industry offers.

After extensive developments and implementations of innovative ideas during the last year, we can now offer our customers many new features and enhancements. The substantially growing number of users mirrors the enhanced attractiveness of bookatonce: More than 1,800 users from more than 70 countries rely on the web-based technology bookatonce by German protel hotelsoftware GmbH.

New features include:

IDS bookatonce: One of the most important new developments is that bookatonce now offers IDS interfaces and thereby gives small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to offer their rooms online via the most important booking portals such as Expedia or hotels.com. Property owners of smaller hotels, B&Bs and inns can now choose from more than 50 different interfaces and determine which channels are best suited to sell their rooms. Users of the bookatonce Business Edition can directly connect these chosen distribution channels to their bookatonce for only five Euro a month and channel.

bookatonce on your iPad: The mobile version of bookatonce for the Apple iPad and iPhone is another impressive innovation that just recently became available. This enables property owners of smaller hotels, B&Bs and inns to offer their guests 5-star service by being able to access all data wherever they are. The apps are now available for all users of the bookatonce Business Edition in the Apple App Store.

Offer online booking in Facebook and Twitter: Do you have a Facebook fan page or a company profile and do you use Twitter to inform your guests about news on your business? Then bookatonce is the perfect solution for you: Now you can offer your guests to book your rooms within Facebook without them having to leave the site. Or you can post, or rather tweet your room deals and specials directly from bookatonce via Twitter. These functions are available for all bookatonce Business Edition users free of charge.

Facilitate booking on your website: Soon we’ll offer the newest (beta) version of our Online Booking Engine which will be even faster, will have a brand new design and many sales promotion measures. This will make booking your rooms on your website a special shopping experience for your future guests. Get a first impression of this at the ITB!

bookatonce on android devices: iPhone users have been able to work with bookatonce via their phone for a while now. In just a few weeks, all users of android devices also will benefit from being able to manage their rooms and guests wherever they are. You can look forward to a preview of the android app at the ITB!

New pricing structure: Our new pricing will make things easier to understand and suits the needs of our users even better. The bookatonce Personal Edition is free of charge and includes all functions required to manage up to five rooms. Should you have more than five rooms, the bookatonce Business Edition is the right choice for you. The Business Edition costs 2.50 Euro per month and room and includes enhanced features such as IDS connect, Facebook and Twitter booking functionality, the iPad app, the option to create individual text templates, and much more. The monthly minimum charge for the bookatonce Business Edition is 35 EUR a month.

We’ll be happy to show you all new features personally at the ITB in hall 8.1, booth 103. Please don’t hesitate to arrange a meeting between the 9th and 13th of March. Just write to sales@bookatonce.com. We’re looking forward to seeing you in Berlin!

… this is now possible for managers of small and medium-sized enterprises applying the first completely mobile property and guest management app „bookatonce for iPad“. With a weight of just 800 grams, this touch sensitive tablet PC designed by Apple is very easy to operate by any user and thus the ideal platform to use bookatonce on the go. “This is exactly what we intended to achieve when we started the development of our iPad App and I am really proud that we made it,” says Christian Weis, quality manager mobile/Apps. “With our iPhone beta testers’ help and taking advantage of our own experience that we gained while developing the bookaontce iPhone App, this break-through was possible.”

The mobile application “bookatonce for iPad” provides a multitude of functions in the languages German, English, Spanish and French. It allows the user to manage all incoming booking requests wherever he might be, easily and quickly. For instance, it is possible to display available rooms within a 14-days-availability-schedule for all room categories. Reservations can be entered directly – and by just one click, an automatic reservation confirmation mailing can be sent to the guest. An overview window “Reservation information” allows easy and quick access to all relevant booking details, guest profiles, invoices etc. The contact details (company and private) as well as special requirements and guest wishes can be entered into the profile. So-called “active lists” display all arrivals and departures, inhouse guests and invoices for any selected period: It is now very easy to find and reservations and guest profiles at a glance and to edit them right away. Please visit the AppStore, if you wish to get some more information concerning the range of functions of our iPad App,

The iPad-App to manage reservations and guests via the iPad is available at the AppStore at a non-recurring fee of EUR 29.99/$37.99 To use the App, it is a prerequisite to have acquired the bookatonce „Business-Edition“ first, then, after having bought the App, you are ready to start. You can either use our demo data base to get a first impression, or you can feed the system with your real data right away.

You are welcome to send us your suggestions on how to improve the system or any other kind of recommendations that help us to develop new functions for the iPad via feedback.bookatonce.com. Of course, it will be a pleasure for us to observe your comments for the next version.

We have had a lot of feedback and conversations with our customers and we have learned that the customers experienced some challenges in picking the „fitting“modules according their individual needs. We reacted immediately and it was already in last November that we presented the two attractive packages „Plus“ (best of) and „Premium“ (all inclusive). The number of customers that opted for those two new packages was amazingly high. This was true for both existing and new customers, so we felt affirmed and encouraged to further follow this new direction. As consequence, we also adapted our pricing structure their needs: it is now much easier to understand.

With immediate effect new customers can now acquire the Editions „Personal“ and „Business“. The Personal Edition substitutes bookatonce’s former free basic version, featuring quite a lot of additional and exciting functions. This Personal Edition will remain free of charge for properties up to 5 rooms. The following functions and modules are already included in the Personal Edition:

• Basic version
• Occupation plan Deluxe
• Pricing Deluxe
• Customer profile Deluxe
• Invoicing Deluxe
• Invoicing “optional”
• Reporting “Standard”
• Occupation calendar / Widget

Of course, we keep offering the option to integrate our Online Booking Engine into your own website. One major advantage that comes with our changes is that we are not billing per reservation anymore. Instead we meet your requirements by offering a flatrate, i.e. that no matter how many reservations you are going to process via your website, you will always just pay a monthly fixed fee of 5 Euros.

Our „Business-Edition“ includes everything bookatonce is offering. Features that are available in addition to those of the „Personal-Edition“ are the following:

• More individuality – e.g. your own text templates
• More mobility – e.g. bookatonce for iPad
• More security – e.g. additional offline lists
• More success – e.g. additional online sales channels such as Social Media and third party booking portal connectivity

The 30 day trial version allows any user to get a first positive impression of bookatonce and to experience the additional function of the extended Business Edition. Once the trial period has ceased the „Business Edition“ – designed especially for bed & breakfasts and guest houses – costs a monthly fee of 2.50 Euros per room. At least, however, 35.00 EUR.

Again, corresponding to the Personal Edition, we facilitate a booking flatrate of 5 Euros per month for your bookings via your own website. This flatrate already includes the fee for all bookings made via Social Media such as twitter or facebook. For connecting additional booking channels, e.g. booking.com or Expedia, we would charge a moderate fee of 5 Euro per month and per channel. This function is limited to our Business Edition users.

A summary giving an overview of both Editions are available here:  www.bookatonce.com/en/pricing

Things are changing very fast and even faster when we talk about the Internet industry, for a small hotel, pension or B&B is quite important to develop an online marketing strategy and understand how important it is to be successful on the new landscape.

There are quite five basic key points that each hotel should have on this new business environment:

1. The most important is to have your own website and make analysis about visitors and conversions. bookatonce helps you with our website builder or one of our partner: Jimdo, STRATO or CM4all and to analyze your website you could use the free tool of Google
2. A web page should be dynamic and change over the time. To make it easier your website should be managed with a content management application or system
3. Integrating a reservation system or booking engine in your webpage, bookatonce provides you a reservation system for a low monthly fee
4. Reservation system should be connected with a PMS, bookatonce offers you this connection making your hotel more efficient and saving time in management taks
5. Online distribution and channel manager (IDS), even if we don’t sell so much in a the channel, but this IDS strategy can send customers to your website and increase your conversion, with bookatonce you can set up 3 channels and connect them with the PMS

You can start implementing these strategies with a very low cost and starting your online presence like hotel chains. If you have any questions or you would like to get more info about our solution, just contact us on www.bookatonce.com and we will give more details about your questions.

In former times it was the printed catalogue – today those printed catalogues are commonly replaced by Internet pages.

. Everybody needs a website nowadays. Without it, i.e. without benefiting from the advantages of modern communication channels, a huge number of potential guests won’t even know you are offering available rooms – so lots of future customers will never have the chance to book your rooms.

This would be a most disappointing situation – and a very unnecessary one, too. Because especially the Internet permits those smaller properties such as guest houses, private vacation rentals or bed & breakfasts to establish their businesses and to distinguish themselves within market niches. In other words: the Internet is the medium to attract many more guests and to increase the property’s exposure considerably and explicitly.

It’s really easy now to make your own website – without any kind of programming knowledge – using Jimdo’s free website builder. Just sign up on www.jimdo.com and after just a few clicks you can create your own and individual website. It’s free, intuitive, and even really fun to use. All this is done web-based, i.e. the user can design and modify his homepage using any computer worldwide.

Users have the chance to pick one design from a variety of options and afterwards can customize their pages. Professional picture galleries and contact forms are just one example of the available features. The company Jimdo addresses small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), just as bookatonce does. While the percentage of customers within the tourism sector is increasing.

The cooperation between Jimdo and bookatonce now allows you to easily and quickly integrate the online booking function into your own website. Direct online bookings are now possible without paying high commissions to third parties. So we open up the direct and most efficient channel to your customers: the Internet.

The Jimdo user has a variety of online booking functions to choose from, so he can pick exactly the option that suits him best. One example is to embed the bookatonce availability calendar (room available/occupied), another one is the option to display a “traditional” request form. The most recommendable way is to offer your rooms or apartments directly and bindingly via your homepage.

Conclusion: bookatonce offers several ways to directly sell rooms via the Internet – now it is very easy to embed these options into your own website. As a result bookings are now received directly through your Jimdo-website without any detours.

Jimdo offers three different website packages. Beginning with the free basic package which is ideal to start experiencing. Or more sophisticated options such as the next level JimdoPro.

Give it a try – free of charge and integrate your personal online booking engine into your own website.