News for the Hospitality Executive |
VFM Leonardo Launches Mobile Media Player for VBrochure
Toronto, ON - June 17, 2011 - Mobile travel bookings have accelerated significantly in the past two years. Now, with increasing consumer demands and evolving mobile technology, mobile strategies for hotels and hotel brands are transforming beyond booking enablement to delivering information that lets consumers research, experience and share. VFM Leonardo’s VBrochure VPowered Multi-Media Player for Mobile devices officially launched today, giving hotels, brands and travel websites the opportunity to lead this transformation. Research by Google says that 95% of smartphone users say they are searching for local details. Further, predictions by leading research firms like eMarketer estimate that the number of people using mobile to research travel will climb by another 10 million to 29.7 million this year. With these facts in mind, VFM Leonardo’s VLabs team, the ideation group and test market for new products and services that accelerate hotel e-business success, developed a VPowered Multi-Media Player for mobile. The mobile-friendly Multi-Media Player helps travel consumers research, experience and share the hotel on their mobile device through hotel photos, virtual tours, videos, marketing copy, and social sharing buttons when they visit hotel brand sites, independent hotel vanity sites and sites in the VNetwork. The VPowered Mobile Player works on a number of operating systems (iOS4, Android, Blackberry OS) and devices (iPhone, Blackberry and popular Androids phones from makers such as Motorola and Nokia). Unlike mobile media players that are universal for all operating systems and devices, VFM Leonardo’s has advanced detection and display technology that ensures the user always gets the optimal experience for the device they’re using. Creates a Complete Website Experience on Hotel Websites During Beta testing, hotels found that the mobile VPowered Multi-Media Player acts as a complete website on mobile devices. By design, it provides travel shoppers on the go with:
Experience the Mobile Media Player for hotel websites by visiting the Courtyard by Marriott Tysons Corner on a mobile device. Hotels and hotel brands looking to add the new Mobile Multi-Media Player to their websites can contact VFM Leonardo. VBrochure Ultra Premium customers can contact Customer Success. Displays Media Optimally on VNetwork Channels and Hotel Brand Sites The VPowered Mobile Player is available to travel shoppers when on channels in the VNetwork and many hotel brand websites that use the VPowered Multi-Media Player to display hotel media. It is currently available on mobile websites and applications for select channels and implementation is in progress on additional sites and apps. Experience the Mobile Media Player on VNetwork by visiting the Amalfi Hotel Chicago on Yahoo on a mobile device. Travel websites looking to accelerate the implementation of mobile compatibility on their mobile sites and apps can contact VFM Leonardo’s Syndication & Business Development group. “Staying competitive today is top of mind for us, our customers and our partners. The launch of our VPowered Mobile Media Player will help give all parties an edge as more and more travel consumers use mobile devices for hotel research and booking," said Paolo Boni, President and CEO, VFM Leonardo. About the VLabs Innovation Program Accelerating innovation in hotel e-business. The proliferation and velocity of new technologies, channels, devices and demands from consumers make online hotel marketing more complex by the day. That’s why innovation and implementation of new products and enhancements is so important to us. Few things in business are more exciting than fresh ideas from teams of people with the vision, expertise and determination to dream them up and get them out to the market. We’ve launched a program to help make this possible. It’s called VLabs. VLabs is an ideation center and test market for new products and services that accelerate hotel e-business success. It’s comprised of young, sharp people from our business, technology and operations management functions who meet regularly to discuss and collaborate on features and ideas that will move VFM Leonardo’s product lines into the forefront of online visual merchandising, rich media display and syndication, sales conversion technologies and lead generation for hotel brands and properties. About VFM Leonardo VFM Leonardo is a technology leader
in online visual
content management and distribution systems. VFM Leonardo’s VScape®
and
VBrochure™ products leverage the distribution capabilities of the
VNetwork™,
the most universally accepted and largest online visual content
distribution
network for the global travel industry including all four global
distribution
systems (GDSs), Pegasus and travel-related channels including online
travel
agencies, travel research and supplier web sites, search portals,
review, travel
editorial and major social media and video sharing sites. VFM Leonardo
offers
the hotel industry the most effective digital asset management and
online
merchandising systems available today and effectively reaches tens of
millions
of consumers monthly with over 1,000,000 visual images (photos, virtual
tours
and videos) on more than 30,000 travel and social media websites in the
VNetwork including all major search engines, Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre,
Worldspan, Pegasus, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Yahoo!
Travel,
Kayak, Facebook and many more for 90,000 hotels worldwide. For more
information
about VFM Leonardo, visit www.vfmleonardo.com.
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Contact: For VFM Leonardo Julie Ford, VFM Leonardo Inc. Toll free: 1-877-593-6634 Phone: 416-263-5446 Fax: 416-593-7572 Email: [email protected] |