Deal Will Integrate High Quality Hotel Information and Images With Rates and Availability

LONDON (February 10, 2010) – Pegasus Solutions, the leading provider of technology and services to hotels and travel distributors, and ABC Connection, the leading online publisher of information and rich content for the hospitality community, today announced they have entered into an agreement to improve the quality and consistency of online content. 

Under the agreement, ABC Connection will provide direct feeds of descriptive text and detailed facility information for business and leisure accommodation in a format that integrates with rates and availability for individual properties available through the Pegasus distribution system, the largest collection of electronically bookable hotels in the world.  

The scope of the relationship includes collaboration to simplify processes and improve efficiencies in publishing integrated content and reservation data to all Pegasus partner channels, including the global distribution systems (GDS), online travel agents (OTAs), travel portals and other third party systems within the Pegasus electronic distribution network. This network also includes its own consumer Web site www.hotelbook.com™.

“Disparate content is an industry-wide problem which can undermine a hotel’s merchandising and online profile and results in inaccurate displays or missing information that strongly influences bookings,” said Michael McCartan, Vice President Product Management Distribution Services, Pegasus Solutions.  “We are taking the lead in finding a solution to the problem that has been at the top of everyone’s agenda for years. “

McCartan continued, “We were attracted to ABC Connection because of its publishing focus, and the breadth and depth of information and visual content managed on its database.  ABC Connection puts brand consistency and marketing control directly into the hands of hotels at both the group and property level, while taking away the difficult and time-consuming task of maintaining consistent content in multiple systems that require market-specific information. ”

ABC Connection will undertake an extensive matching exercise to ensure its information fully integrates with the Pegasus Online Distribution Database, which contains descriptive information for more than 95,000 hotels worldwide. 

A future phase will develop a user defined content (UDC) program for each channel partner in the Pegasus network.  Once implemented, the global distribution systems and other travel distributors will be able to receive regular feeds of high quality validated content and inventory via Pegasus that is relevant and fully customized to match the search and display criteria for their markets, agents and customers.

Brian Farrugia, ABC Connection CEO, said: “We are delighted to be part of this step-change in online publishing for the hotel industry.  Our agreement with Pegasus is very good news for our hotel customers who can now ensure consistency of message and ease of updating their information across the full spectrum of the Pegasus distribution network. They have recognised and experienced business growth and brand promotion that comes from the distribution and availability of high quality and consistent information. The marketing exposure via Pegasus will deliver significant added value.”