FARNBOROUGH – February 23, 2012 – SoftBrands today announced that Shearings Holidays, a leading UK tour operator with an extensive property portfolio, has successfully deployed SoftBrands Classic Starlight Property Management System (PMS).  Starlight will help standardise and streamline operations across Shearings’ 48 properties, and drive growth by enabling independent and third party bookings.
 
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• As part of a six figure deal, Shearings Holidays has gone live with SoftBrands Classic Starlight for 160 users.  The solution replaces legacy systems and manual processes in hotels throughout Shearings’ 48 properties.
• The Shearings portfolio is split into two brands.  “Bay Hotels” is a value-driven offering, closely aligned to the Shearings’ coach holidays, while the “Coast & Country” division represents a premium proposition.  However prior to implementing SoftBrands Classic Starlight, Shearings could only offer its Coast & Country portfolio direct to non-coach holidaymakers via its own in-house reservation system which could not link with third party websites.  Starlight will help open this market by integrating Shearings’ systems with third party websites, as well as enhancing online, telephone and face to face bookings direct from holidaymakers.
• SoftBrands Classic Starlight will also provide a centralised view of occupancy rates, facilitating cross selling opportunities across the organisation to maximise revenue.
• For the Bay Hotels portfolio, Starlight will also deliver savings by standardising operations and improving inventory management.
• In order to reduce demand for IT resource, SoftBrands Classic Starlight is fully hosted by SoftBrands’ Frankfurt data centre.  Using Citrix virtualisation, staff at each property have browser-based access to the solution.  Implementation of the systems for all 48 properties at the data centre was achieved in three hours.

Shearings Quote
“We are not a typical hotel chain,” said Vince Flower, managing director, Shearings Hotels.  “Now that we can offer our premium Coast & Country portfolio to travelers via third party websites, we can develop a valuable new line of business. This is not just about increased revenue in the short to medium term, as we can look to develop this business as a separate brand and entity in the long term.”
 
SoftBrands Quote
“Identifying and exploiting opportunities for growth is critical for property owners and tour operators alike,” said Wolfgang Emperger, vice president, EMEA, SoftBrands.  “But creating new streams of revenue need not be at the expense of a focus on improved efficiency and tighter operations.  Indeed, in the current climate, hotel chains and tour operators need to look at both to make substantial improvements to the bottom line and that is exactly what Starlight offers to Shearings.”