Extended-Stay Developer Centralizes Operation Of Six Long-Term Stay Properties, Drives 70-Day Average Length Of Stay, Uses Maestro From NORTHWIND

Demand is so strong in the corporate housing segment that Minto Furnished Suites' newest long-term property, the 103-suite Minto Yorkville in Toronto, was sold out of some room types upon opening its doors. "Minto's growth is in direct response to the market's need for long-term stay units," said Ian MacCulloch, general manager for Minto Furnished Suites' six Toronto and Ottawa properties. "Minto caters to traveling business people who are in Toronto or Ottawa for an extended period of time. Our average length of stay is 70 days, and because this segment is growing, and to service extended-stay clientele, Minto Furnished Suites is adding properties that are larger and offer a more complete housing package than a normal hotel. Many of our suites are 800 square feet, and supplied with more amenities than an apartment, such as completely furnished units with high-speed Internet access, phone service and cable, but with less services than a luxury hotel. We installed the Maestro Property Management Suite with Sales and Catering a year ago for our 406-room full-service Minto Place Suite Hotel, and found the system to be so well designed we wanted to implement it throughout our entire hospitality division. Since most of our long-term stay business is through corporate agreements it was important that we manage these relationships centrally, and that is why we put all our properties on NORTHWIND's Maestro Multi-Property Suite with a single-image client database."

Minto also installed hospitality-grade HSIA and PBX systems in its properties to raise the service level, reduce operating expenses, and capture more revenue. MacCulloch explained, "Our high-speed Internet and PBX systems interface to Maestro, and, thanks to its centralized database, when our guests move from one property to another their folio and account history follows them seamlessly. By having a central PMS, CRM and billing system we are able to offload a huge administrative burden onto Maestro; we just added 100 suites and actually decreased our workload. The Maestro Multi-Property system streamlined our operation and minimized the body count for our residential environment. We are generating a 75 percent savings monthly in operating costs by using a telephone trunk line and PBX interfaced with Maestro to bill calls in real time. These numbers made it very easy to justify the Maestro purchase."

To maximize revenue across the chain, rate controls for all Minto Furnished Suites properties are created and managed centrally with Maestro. "We provide real-time centralized yield management to all our locations," said MacCulloch. "We build rate and occupancy parameters within Maestro's yield management system at our corporate office. Maestro Multi-Property is Citrix-based, so all our properties feed information into, and can be centrally managed by, our corporate server. If one property reaches a preset occupancy threshold, the system automatically adjusts the price up or down for all the other Minto Furnished Suites in that market. With Maestro Multi-Property we can have the system automatically adjust our rate strategy across all the properties in our brand every time we make a booking."

Minto Furnished Suites also uses Maestro to manage its corporate sales efforts. All negotiated corporate accounts are accessed from Minto's central Maestro Multi-Property database, so corporate clients with employees staying in separate properties can receive a consolidated invoice each month for all billing. Ian MacCulloch, Minto Furnished Suites' general manager concluded, "We chose the Maestro Multi-Property system because it was already used by many long-term stay properties; we did not want to be a beta site for unproven software. Maestro will simplify our growth because the technology is already in place to support new properties. The system provides front office management, financial reporting, occupancy forecasting, yield management, and guest accounting for all our properties centrally now; placing additional properties on the system in the future will leverage our investment."

About NORTHWIND
NORTHWIND (www.maestropms.com), known in the hospitality industry for its service and state-of-the-art technology, is widely respected for providing hotels, guests, and corporate management companies with flexible software solutions.

Based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, with a network of dealers and offices worldwide, NORTHWIND is a leading supplier of software for hotel owners and operators who need to manage their enterprise in a real time environment for maximum operational control and profitability. Designed to handle any size hotel, resort, meeting/conference center, multi-property and for the enterprise, NORTHWIND's Maestro solution offers the most productive working environment, which includes the following suite of products: PMS, Sales & Catering, Club/Spa Management, Corporate Reservations Office, Multi-Property Management, Condo/Owner Management, Yield Management, GDS Connectivity and ResEze (Internet Reservations). This comprehensive multi-platform (Windows 9X/NT/2000/XP, Unix/Linux, Terminal Server & Web Enabled) suite is recognized as the solution of choice for progressive and demanding organizations. NORTHWIND is a total solution provider that offers leading-edge technologies, and unparalleled training and support.

NORTHWIND will be demonstrating its systems at the Historic Hotels of America 2003 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO, October 22-24, 2003 and IH/M&RS Show in New York City, NY, November 8th-11th, 2003.

Minto Furnished Suites () has been providing accommodation for extended stay travelers in Toronto and Ottawa since 1989. The parent company, Minto Developments Inc. (), is based in Ottawa and has a forty year track record building quality homes, apartments, condominiums, and more recently, an all-suite hotel. The furnished apartments operated by Minto are within company managed or owned locations providing the ability for the service team to control every aspect of its guests' experience. New properties include the recently opened MintoYorkville in the heart of Toronto's upscale shopping and restaurant district and MintoGardens, currently under construction, in North York, conveniently located on the Toronto Transit rail line and providing excellent highway access to all major suburbs and Toronto International Airport.

Minto Furnished Suites, who knew trimming travel costs could be so comfortable