SACO The Serviced Apartment Company — Photo by Guestline
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Shrewsbury, UK – 17th July 2013 - Guestline, a provider of software solutions that deliver revenue to the global hospitality industry, today announced that SACO The Serviced Apartment Company a worldwide provider of serviced apartment accommodation, has chosen Guestline to provide integrated hotel management solutions across its portfolio of properties.

As SACO operates over 600 apartments across 32 UK sites, and provides customers access to a further 20,000 apartments in 42 countries via selected partners. The group required a centralised property management, reservations and distribution platform that would support control of rates and availability from a single interface.

SACO implemented a range of Guestline hotel management solutions including the Rezlynx Property Management System (PMS) and the Central Reservations System (CRS) for a complete overview of its large property portfolio, from a single platform – resulting in a more streamlined and integrated booking and management process.

"Because we take so many bookings for not just our own properties, but also our worldwide partners, it was imperative to have a single oversight of the bookings and sales activity across our complete portfolio," explained Ben Harper, Sales Director at SACO. "Guestline's CRS provides this visibility."

SACO also installed the PCI Manager for PCI-DSS credit card security, the Online Booking Manager to provide online bookings through SACO's website, and the Channel and Distribution Manager to manage inventory exposure to Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and the Global Distribution System (GDS).

Since the implementation of the Online Booking Manager in May this year, SACO has already seen a 50% increase in the number of online bookings. "One of our key objectives was to significantly increase the volume of online bookings via our own website, we are delighted with such positive results in just two months. The Online Booking Manager is really supporting us with this strategy," said Harper.

However, while the focus is on driving online traffic through its own website, SACO understood the need for a presence in the OTA market as well, due to consumer behaviour.

"Customers are often turning to OTAs like Booking.com or LateRooms.com to benefit from room rate comparisons, or to book a room fast," said Harper. "We identified the Channel and Distribution Manager as the ideal solution as it allows us to control rates and availability from a single real-time source and is very effective in securing last minute bookings due to short stays or cancellations."

Phil Davidson, Managing Director of Guestline, commented on the partnership: "We are delighted to be supporting SACO Serviced Apartments to manage their global property portfolio in a more streamlined and integrated way. The esteemed serviced accommodation group is further recognition of our ability to provide full service software solutions to a broad spectrum of different accommodation industries."

About SACO The Serviced Apartment Company

  • Created in 1997 because founders David and Lesley Freed loved the benefits that serviced apartments offer business and leisure travellers
  • SACO believe that apartments offer better value, an easier way to stay away and give travellers a wider range of choices that are not available with traditional hotel thinking
  • SACO operates its own portfolio of over 600 apartments and has a global network of over 20,000 apartments across 156 key destinations in 42 countries through carefully selected partners
  • The company's corporate headquarters are in Bristol and employs over 150 staff
For more information, visit www.sacoapartments.com

About Guestline

Established 30 years ago, Guestline provides innovative property management, guest engagement and distribution software to the hospitality industry. Founded on cloud technology, Guestline's revenue generating solutions enable independents of all sizes and small hotel groups to achieve maximum occupancy at the most profitable rate.

With offices in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Thailand, Guestline's property management software is currently growing revenues in businesses in 25 countries across five continents. The range of solutions include Guestline PMS, CRS, C&B, Channel Manager, EPoS, IBE, GuestStay and GuestPay. Additionally, Guestline's PMS can be integrated with nearly 200 third-party solutions via an API.

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