CHICAGO, TravelCLICK Inc., the leader in hotel emarketing solutions, today announced the acquisition of Blue Square Studios, an award-winning provider of Internet business solutions -- including web design, production and search engine optimization (SEO) -- for the hospitality industry. The acquisition creates an unrivaled platform for hoteliers, combining the superior property merchandising and distribution technology of TravelCLICK's iHotelier central reservation system (CRS) with the industry-leading web presence management technology of Blue Square Studios. This groundbreaking combination will provide hoteliers with capabilities not available to date in the hospitality industry.

Phoenix-based Blue Square Studios pioneered dynamic website management with a unique web presence management system known as the Hospitality Toolkit(R) and combined it with award-winning design and SEO to create superior hotel websites. Together with TravelCLICK's iHotelier CRS and full portfolio of Internet marketing solutions, including pay-per-click advertising and real-time ROI reporting, the acquisition delivers a revolutionary Internet marketing platform to the hotel industry from a single provider.

"This acquisition represents a paradigm shift for the industry," said Robert Post, President and Chief Executive Officer at TravelCLICK. "Online hotel merchandising is not just about design anymore. It's about smart technology that can tightly integrate the hotel website and the reservation application to optimize the consumer experience and generate maximum revenue performance for the hotel. We have worked with Blue Square Studios for more than a year and have created a repeatable and scaleable Internet marketing platform -- one that enables hotels to take control of their own websites to cost effectively and dynamically manage their website content. Our integration of the Hospitality Toolkit with the iHotelier CRS provides a powerful merchandising solution that has already delivered superior results for such leading properties as ARAMARK Harrison Lodging, Classic Resorts, and The Palms South Beach."

Blue Square's browser-based Hospitality Toolkit 2.2 enables hotels to update their websites instantly and as often as they like with intuitive site management tools that refresh web content with user-friendly step-by-step processes. The toolkit manages and delivers rich media content and integrates software modules to support dining reservations, guest requests, restaurant menus, packages and specials, photo gallery, spa treatments and more. The ability for hotel staff to execute real-time updates also provides hotels with a unique crisis communications tool for weather emergencies and other time-sensitive communications needs.

"We have used Blue Square's Hospitality Toolkit, along with TravelCLICK's iStay booking engine, for several months now with amazing results," said Sarah Murov of The Palms South Beach in Miami Beach, FL. "We are constantly refreshing our offers, our photo gallery, and our restaurant and bar menus, plus providing third-party content feeds, such as a five-day weather forecast. This combination of leading-edge technologies has allowed us to take hotel merchandising to a new level, with higher conversions and an enhanced online guest experience. There's nothing like it in the hospitality industry."

"It is a natural fit for us to join TravelCLICK," said Shane Ettestad, former President and Chief Executive Officer at Blue Square Studios, now Vice President of Internet Marketing Solutions at TravelCLICK. "The integration of the Hospitality Toolkit with an award-winning single-screen booking engine not only enables hotels to deliver the most dynamic shopping and booking experience in the industry, but also allows them to target and convert online shoppers more effectively and gain a huge competitive advantage. This is the next evolution in Internet marketing and web content management."

About TravelCLICK, Inc. | TravelCLICK (/) is the leading provider of emarketing solutions that help hotels sell rooms smarter and drive long-term profitability. TravelCLICK helps hotels maximize asset ROI by combining innovative market analysis and proven industry best practices with advanced technology to develop and implement high-return strategies. The company offers a full set of solutions including reservations and distribution management, market intelligence-based decision support, and marketing services. Serving the hospitality industry since 1996 and headquartered in the Chicago area, TravelCLICK has more than 12,000 customers in 140 countries.

Katrina Pruitt-Andrews
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