June 09, 2008: Cultuzz Digital Media, a German provider of booking and distribution technologies for hotels, has recently created an XML-based two-way interface to Expedia.
With this development, it is possible to send room availability data and prices to Expedia directly from the front office system (PMS) of the hotel. Reservations received by Expedia are also transferred directly to the hotel’s system.
All hotels and B&Bs using an associated hotel programme (e.g. Velox, hotline, Deltra HS/3, Medusa, Gubse and others) can use this direct link to Expedia.
Expedia has joined the ranks of Cultuzz’s distribution channels, such as HRS, hotel.de, Booking, ehotel and eBay.
“We want to create direct links to all major distributors, if possible, as well as to regionally significant portals,” said Dr Reinhard Vogel, Founder and Managing Director of Cultuzz. “In doing so, an important factor in terms of technology is that we can not only send, but also receive information. Only in this way can we speak of a closed information circuit.”
Cultuzz stores all the relevant information of the respective hotel in a central database, along with availabilities, prices, cancellation policy and payment methods all the way through to images and descriptions of rooms and street maps. In fully automated processes, the data in question is exchanged between the hotel management program (PMS) and numerous booking platforms. Incoming reservations are immediately returned to the hotel systems, ensuring that the data circulation system is completely closed.
Hotel owners have three major benefits in using this system: enormous time savings thanks to a single point of entry to rates and inventory management, rate parity on all booking platforms and an effective system to prevent overbooking.
