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UniFocus Forms Strategic Partnership with Circos and
gCommerce for Reputation Management

Partnership to Provide One Portal for Social Media Monitoring and Feedback


DALLAS�NOVEMBER 10, 2009 � UniFocus, a global pioneer in the hospitality industry for performance, workforce management and closed-loop feedback solutions, has kicked off a strategic partnership with Circos Brand Karma and gCommerce Solutions to leverage the full potential of reputation management. The firms have joined forces to provide clients with real time access to an array of online commentary and analytics from one portal.

�Our strategic partnership with Circos and gCommerce is emblematic of a dramatically changed marketing environment wherein social media plays a larger role,� said Mark Heymann, President and CEO of UniFocus. �The viral nature of this medium allows guests to �tell� exponentially more people about their experiences than ever before, making the old 20 person rule obsolete. It�s always been vital to know what your customers have thought about their experience, but now it is more critical than ever to know what�s being said about your property and how that impacts your online revenue channels.� 

Social media is user-generated content built upon the interactive facilities of the web, and is increasingly influential in determining which destination a consumer, business traveler or meeting planner chooses.  Circos Brand Karma extracts brand sentiments for analysis from online consumer-written reviews and comments; gCommerce assessments put everything into a broader marketing context to drive online revenue channels.

�We created Brand Karma so that hospitality organizations could take relevant social media content and turn it into meaningful information for the business,� said Mario Jobbe, Co-Founder of Circos. �Brand Karma utilizes complex algorithms to transform property-specific commentary on social sites into numeric data for subsequent competitive analysis. This information is then packaged into easily digestible reports for management.�

�Our hospitality clients are experiencing big gains as the result of optimizing revenue from online channels,� said Scott van Hartesvelt, gCommerce President. �We are essentially monetizing social media by providing the analysis and reporting to glean actionable information for our customers. That�s our core business, and it�s a win-win proposition since our services are paid for out of a percentage of their increased bookings.

�If an organization wants to improve their revenue performance, we start by doing a web site assessment,� continued Hartesvelt. �Then we go through the marketing process, from search engine optimization to a competitive overview, positioning, branding and developing an e-Marketing and channel distribution launch plan. And we fully engage our clients in the process, meeting with each one no less than once a week.�

�In the past, most hospitality organizations have gathered feedback from touch points that range from focus groups to guest cards to online surveys,� said Denise Cooper, Marketing Director for gCommerce. �Now in addition to these approaches you can have access to best-in-class 24x7 monitoring to more than 250 social media and travel sites to find out what specific conversations are going on out there about your property.�

Today�s economic climate is forcing many hotels to drive revenue from multiple channels, creating a critical need for an online reputation management system that bubbles up all relevant online feedback and comments.

�The combination of our three companies brings an unparalleled breadth of experience to the hospitality sector, both with respect to technology and industry expertise,� added Heymann. �Our strategic initiative will advance the interests of clients and protect their bottom line as we take online reputation management to the next level by leveraging both survey and social media analytics to create better intelligence for revenue retention and enhancement.�

About gCommerce Solutions 
Headquartered in Park City, Utah, gCommerce (www.gcommercesolutions.com) is a full-service Internet marketing and distribution management company. The boutique marketing company provides a full range of services to address all aspects of a hotel�s Web presence, including strategic partnering with on-line search engines. Hotels managed by gCommerce typically experience reservation increases of 10 percent to 30 percent.

About Circos 
Circos is a leading technology company that specializes in extracting brand sentiments from the actual text in consumer-written reviews and comments. The company�s proprietary technologies apply semantic analysis to social media, surfacing rich insights about brands based on personal preferences. Circos specializes in social media for the hotel and tourism industries, and its Brand Karma product is helping leading hotel brands increase revenue, improve search engine optimization, and credibly brand themselves online.

Circos was founded in 2006 and is privately funded by a team of successful entrepreneurs and investment bankers. We're based in San Mateo, CA and Singapore. For more information, visit www.circos.com.

About UniFocus
Based in Dallas, UniFocus serves hospitality, casino and resort operations in the U.S. and overseas. UniFocus offers full-service operational analysis, management and staff training, financial and labor management applications, as well as staff, meeting planner and guest satisfaction measurement programs, along with a unique mystery evaluation system that can link service standard attainment to guest and employee perceptions. The resulting database allows UniFocus to uniquely correlate and benchmark each client�s performance to their particular competitive markets. Enhanced reporting capabilities allow hospitality executives to have a �total picture� overview of their operations, set strategic actions and gain asset value.

UniFocus is a member of the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), a member of the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Directors-International (ACCED-I), a Microsoft® Certified Partner, an affinity partner of the International Association of Conference Centers, and an allied member of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. For more information, visit www.unifocus.com or call 972-512-5100.

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Contact: 

Michael Adkisson 
 Director of Public Relations 
UniFocus, LP 
Tel: (972) 512-5187 
[email protected]

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