SynXis, the Sabre Holdings business for hotel distribution and Internet marketing services globally, announced  that Leonardo Hotels has switched to the RedX Distribution Management System for seamless connectivity to the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and Internet Distribution Systems (IDS) channels. A new and ambitious player in the European midscale market, Leonardo Hotels launched in key European gateway cities such as Berlin, Munich, Zurich, and Frankfurt in 2007 and their rapid expansion plans include up to 30 three- and four-star hotels by the end of 2008. Leonardo Hotels, the European division of Fattal Hotels, will launch its own private label chain code, LD, with SynXis this month.

“The move to RedX has been a big success for our properties. In just four months our Munich properties have received more GDS and IDS bookings than they did in all of 2007,” said Shay Raz, Director of Revenue and Development at Leonardo Hotels. “We chose SynXis because we believe RedX offers us the best technology available to support the kind of growth we are planning for. Further, the system’s ease of use and SynXis’ ongoing customer support was, and continues to be, very attractive to us.”

SynXis also enhanced the integration of the hotelier’s integration of its property management system through RedX Property ConnectSM to provide a seamless interface to their existing Optima Property Management System, managed by Silverbyte. The new interface was developed in less than two months and is now being rolled out to all 27 properties.  The interface improves efficiencies at the property level by automating reservation delivery, as well as inventory, rate, and restriction (stay controls) uploads.  Additionally Leonardo Hotels will take advantage of Channel ConnectSM to link its properties, via RedX, directly to third party travel sites such as Travelocity, lastminute.com, and Booking.com, and enable the hotels to better differentiate their products by providing information such as detailed stay policies and child pricing directly to retail points of sales.

“The launch of the new LD chain code and the active expansion of Leonardo Hotels across Europe required an emphasis on excellent distribution services, leading technology and experience in managing a mid-size chain with its own chain code and the SynXis track record speaks for itself,” commented Raz.

The SynXis team has implemented and now manages 37 private label chain codes and recent switches have experienced increases in booking volumes between 11 and 23 percent (in year over year, “same-store-sales”) in the first six months after the switch to RedX.

“We are excited to welcome such an ambitious and forward-thinking hotel group as Leonardo Hotels to our customer base,” said Scott Alvis, president and general manager of SynXis. “Since switching to SynXis and taking advantage of our integration products they have already seen quite an improvement in efficiency and customer service.  We expect that their continued interest in leveraging all that RedX has to offer will provide them with a great competitive advantage in their market. The partnership is really a great match of synergies.”