Hotel Technology Next Generation

The new alliance integrates the two leaders' solutions and, consistent with each company's dedication to travel and hospitality solutions that benefit all involved parties, enables hotels, Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), and meeting planners to substantially improve customer service while saving time and money through the expanded capabilities this powerful combination creates.

"This breakthrough integration leverages the very best of the best, allowing truly complementary, industry-leading technology suites to talk to each other and exchange information in real-time," said Sean O'Neill, President & CEO of Portsmouth-based Newmarket International. "Our alliance with Passkey helps the entire industry by removing significant work-flow process gaps, thereby providing comprehensive end-to-end meetings and events management for both groups and attendees."

The seamless integration of these two leading tool sets will further automate processes that deal with group business management for hotels, CVBs and meeting-planning professionals. Together, Newmarket and Passkey eliminate redundant data entry; improve the timeliness, accuracy and availability of collected group data, and successfully leverage both companies' intertwined systems to deliver crucial information directly to a client's existing system.

Greg Pesik, President & CEO of Passkey, explains that this alliance strengthens each company's respective competitive advantages in an increasingly contested marketplace:

"Both of our companies enjoy leadership positions in our respective domains, but we also face persistent challenges," Pesik said. "A strong, value-driven collaboration between our two companies empowers each of us to deliver process efficiencies and incremental revenues to our clients that far surpass the nearest alternatives."

For example, Newmarket's CVBreezeTM solution, which automates services provided by a city's CVB, will now seamlessly integrate with CityWideSM, Passkey's group housing solution for CVBs, meeting planners, hotel companies and other housing providers that manage events involving one or more hotels. Newmarket's market-leading DelphiTM sales, marketing and catering solutions will also interface with HotelDirectSM, Passkey's group housing solution for single-property meetings.

After a meeting is turned definite in Newmarket's system, Passkey systems take over inventory management, delegate handling, fulfillment functions, and update Newmarket's statistics as booking activity occurs. At the close of a meeting, Newmarket's solutions capture post-departure actuals and update Passkey's data accordingly, creating the industry's most complete repository of crucial booking pace and final materialization information for group business.

With this technology alliance, once-dissimilar systems now will share critical, real-time information at any point in a meeting's life cycle. As a result, significant time, cost and margin-for-error associated with traditional, manual processes become a welcome casualty of intelligent automation.

A significant portion of Passkey's CVB customer base, and 2,000+ hotels, are also Newmarket clients eager for this integrated functionality. Not only will the efficiencies created through this partnership provide both companies with new business opportunities, but it will further cement existing client relationships by improving satisfaction and return on investment for all hotels, CVBs and meeting planners involved.

"The rich network of benefits this alliance produces for our current and prospective clients will redefine marketplace expectations of the value an alliance should deliver," O'Neill said. "We are turning the elusive promise of true value-added integration between different, but related, technologies into a reality."

About Newmarket International
Newmarket International, "the makers of Delphi," is the leader in delivering groups, sales, catering and banquet software solutions to global travel and entertainment organizations. Hotels, Casinos, Visitor Bureaus, Meeting Houses, Convention Centers and Arenas all use this powerful technology. Newmarket International provides competitive advantages to all of its customers by enabling leads to electronically transfer across cities and around the world. By harnessing award-winning technology and support, the industry's best return on investment, domain expertise, and a commitment to the travel industry, Portsmouth, N.H.-based Newmarket enables customers to increase efficiencies and maximize profits. For more information, please visit www.newmarketinc.com.

About Passkey
Passkey (www.passkey.com), the industry leading ASP solution for group reservations management and distribution, provides all channels of this industry's planning process with better, more efficient ways to manage events. The Quincy, Mass.-based provider empowers users with web-based applications that provide all parties with real-time reports and updates on every facet of the planning process. Industries served include Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), Global Distribution Systems (GDS), hotels, travel agencies, associations, corporations, meetings RFP engines and registration vendors. Travel providers who are Passkey-enabledSM can also leverage Passkey technology to manage group housing for both citywide and single property meetings. Passkey investors include: Lazard Technology Partners; Sabre [NYSE: TSG] (www.sabre.com); Galileo [NYSE: GLC] (www.galileo.com); Worldspan (www.worldspan.com); TravelCLICK (www.travelclick.net); DRV and McCord Group Travel Services ().

Contact
Shawn McDonald
Director of Marketing
Phone: (603) 430-7434
Fax: (603) 436-1826
Email: smcdonald@newmarketinc.com