We just launched our website for St Lucia. Called BookingsStlucia.com, it's a pretty major undertaking with lots of content and all of the hotels, resorts, villas, apartments and guesthouses. What's different about it is that it's aimed at putting travelers in contact with the tourism operators directly.

So does St Lucia need another website? I don't have anything against the websites that are already in place, there are good services and good content on the web. But the big issue is knowing who you are doing business with and how.

Travelers want to be able to get an instant quote, knowing it includes all the extras and what the costs are for a family given special rates and seasonal variances. This way they can compare apples and apples and know what's what.

Many websites don't have booking engines and don't do comparisons, if they do, chances are that you will end up booking with a third party and not the hotel. This can be great but more and more travelers want to book direct, because it gives them better contact with their hosts and often better control over changes and extras.

So we built our own booking engine and it powers the direct to hotel website BookingsStlucia.com. All the information in the system is loaded by our team to start. The hotel then takes care of it's content rates and specials. They publish with the tools we give them.

The internet is all about sharing so we share. Listing for the hotels are free. We provide the technology and training at a low cost that anyone can afford, and we market the site so that it get known. From then on its a direct site, where travelers can look, compare, get quotes, save the results, reserve with a hotel directly or book direct on-line.

So what's in it for us? We do offer paid features and optional services which tourism operators can opt in to. For example, they may choose to have the booking engine on their own website. That costs just 125$ US pa if they are hosted with us and an extra $125 US to setup if not hosted with us.

Direct booking engines are not altogether a new concept but for many of the tourism operators and resorts we deal with it is, and they are pleased to reach out with a direct link to travellers.

It's why we do what we do, and it's stated a bit more formally in our press release.

Official Press Release


July 30, 2007, AXSES Systems Caribbean Inc, developers and marketers of
http://Barbados.org, http://RealHolidays.com, and many Caribbean sites, launches http://BookingsStlucia.com

http://BookingsStlucia.com is a DIRECT marketing channel for all tourism operators.
Unlike tour operators and distributors AXSES specialises in giving hotel and tourism operators the tools to manage their distribution and market DIRECT to traveler.

Ian Clayton, CEO of AXSES Systems Caribbean Inc, says "Our solutions have been tested for over a decade with http://BookingsBarbados.com, http://RealHolidays.com and http://Barbados.org, the largest single source of Internet bookings in Barbados for many hotels and operators on the Island".

AXSES tools allow operators to manage rates and specials in multiple marketing channels, including: direct to consumer sales as well as global distribution (GDS) and Internet travel sites.

AXSES provides essential services without cost to all hotels and allow the operators to opt in to more advanced features like offering specials and packages with online quotes and bookings.

"Our aim is to make technology and marketing accessible to all" says Clayton.

examples of free accommodation listings are:
http://bookingsstlucia.com/encyc/carib/stlucia/hotelname.cfm
http://bookingsstlucia.com/encyc/carib/stlucia/hotelsize.cfm
http://bookingsstlucia.com/encyc/carib/stlucia/hotelfacilities.cfm
http://bookingsstlucia.com/encyc/carib/stlucia/hotellocation.cfm


"It's an approach to the market that has served our clients well, and we look forward to making it available now, for the first time in St. Lucia", says Clayton.

AXSES will be contacting all hotels and tourism operators to introduce the initiative and help St. Lucia tourism companies make the most of the new marketing opportunity.






For More Information please contact Ian Clayton, CEO, AXSES SCI

iclayton@axses.com
AXSES SCI
Baslen House, Kingston Terrace, Barbados
Tel 246 429 2653
http://axses-travel.com
http://BookingsStlucia.com