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We at Blizzard are very excited about one of the newest products in our line – Blizzard Reservation Engine.  The product was released to a chosen small group of clients 6 months ago and with the early success that we have seen thus far, we are ready to release it to the general public. 

While there are some good booking engines out there, we have heard many clients over the years talk about things they wish that they could do and we set out to address them with Blizzard Reservation Engine:

1. Usability and Conversion issues that include appearance (matching the rest of site), speed, quick search and a way to manage specials.
2. Marketing issues that include SEO friendliness, branding and analytics.
3. Flexibility issues that are primarily centered on the fact that many are not customizable with features that the client wants to see.

After digesting all of these issues, we were ready to come out with a solution to offer clients the features they wanted.  We had no intent to build our own booking engine, but instead just wanted to offer these features to an existing booking engine so we worked together with Instant Software, who provides some very strong property management and booking products to offer a solution to clients using their ISI Link  product.  Here is a presentation on Blizzard Reservation Engine for those wanting to see more about it.  I will also take some time to answer some of the questions on the basics that you may have below.

What is Blizzard Reservation Engine? 
Blizzard Reservation Engine (BRE) is a product that allows your booking engine to be more customized and that adds many SEO features that are not currently available on most booking engines.

Who needs Blizzard Reservation Engine?
Currently BRE is a great product for any clients using the Instant Software products V12, Property Plus or Entech that want more customization of that engine on their site than they currently enjoy.  It is also for any of these clients that want to have quick search features or increased specials management, as well as anyone looking to take full advantage of the SEO opportunities that are available when every page in your booking engine is available to be optimized.

How is it different than other booking engines?
Although there are multiple differences the one that may be most important to property owners is that this has been designed with SEO and ease of use as its primary objective.  The ability to have such complete control over content and SEO features in your booking engine is something we haven’t really seen anywhere else.  The ability to manage the photos and descriptions of every property allow the property owner complete control of the presentation of their properties.  Blizzard Reservations also has the capability to offer analytics on its pages that many booking engines just aren’t able to provide because of its complete integration with our tracking solution.

Why is SEO important on booking pages?
SEO is important on booking pages because these pages are a much larger part of the average website than most property owners realize.  Each individual property has its own page.  Each category of property can have its own page, not to mention specials, packages and amenities.  For many property owners or property management companies it can be like enlarging your current site tenfold because these pages live on your website and now not only have you increased the size of your site tenfold, but you have done it all with pages that can be optimized for peak performance in search engines.  The potential that this adds to your website performance can’t be overstated.  One client that has had Blizzard Reservation Engine only 3 months has already seen BRE pages become 6 of their top 10 viewed pages including one of them second only behind the websites home page.  This is the opportunity that is unleashed through Blizzard Reservation Engine.

Is there somewhere where I can see how it works?
We do have a demo version available at http://reservations.blizzardinternet.com.  Unless your command of Latin is exquisite, you won’t find the reading enlightening, but this gives you an excellent opportunity to try out the search features and to get a feel for the layout, including the presentation of specials, quick search, advanced search, properties and packages. 

How do I get more information if I am interested?
If Blizzard Reservation Engine looks like a product that suits your needs and you would like to talk to us more about it, you can always email us or give us a call at 888-840-5893 ext.306.

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