Irving, TX – July 28, 2014 – "It's All About Business Travel" at the BT Advantage/BT Hotel Collection booth – where independent hotels can discover how to accelerate sales and traveler managers can find ideal hotels.

The BT Advantage:

BT Advantage is a unique business travel program offering upgraded Sales Support NAM Representation which allows pre-qualified hotels the opportunity to participate in select Preferred Partner Programs such as American Express and Corporate RFPs. Each hotel is reviewed for both service levels, facilities and location to ensure it meets the expectations of today's business travelers.

The BT Hotel Collection:

The BT Hotel Collection includes mid-market to luxury properties located in major city centers as well as surrounding locations. Every property is business-travel friendly offering amenities to satisfy all business travelers' needs including complimentary WiFi and well equipped desks in every room. Many offer additional extras such as breakfast, room upgrades, late checkout and waived early cancellation penalties. The fast-growing BT Hotel Collection currently has 95 hotels in more than 65 locations. Look for the "BT" Chain Code in the GDS.

At GBTA Booth #1051 you'll meet the independent hotel sales and marketing experts from the BT Advantage Team who can show you the many advantages of adding the BT Hotel Collection properties to your business travel profiles. On hand will be Lara Weiss, Director Travel Industry Partnerships/RFP Services, Rowena Montafia, BT Director of Corporate Sales, and representatives from our BT Hotel Collection who can introduce you to their individual properties: Pineapple Hospitality, Oxford Hotel Group, Station Casinos, Kinzie Hotel, Palms Casino Resort, Paramount Hotel Seattle, Paramount Hotel Portland, Westlake Village Inn, Copley Square Boston and TI Hotel & Casino Las Vegas.

SalesConnect Helps Independent Hotels Compete:

BT Advantage has introduced a web-based CRM tool, "SalesConnect," that significantly expands the technology-based support to member hotels to help them increase their business travel sales.

"Bringing together BT Advantage and SalesConnect has created a powerful client relationship management tool that offers our member hotels an unprecedented resource to prospect for new accounts, implement best sales practices and improve overall sales productivity," said Debra Taube, executive vice president business development for the BT Advantage program. "The new technology and capabilities are designed to drive increased sales and revenue to the hotel."

SalesConnect magnifies the scope of how the BT Advantage sales team and hotels work together to manage account databases and sales activities with all of their corporate accounts. The program's extensive array of capabilities and support includes:

• 12 years of data including company profiles and contact information, travel policies, RFP information, room nights' data, travel agency information and hotels in client preferred programs. It is a one-stop shop for obtaining account information anywhere an internet connection is available. It would take years and considerable expense to build such a web-based database.
• Sales activity logs, from sales calls and hotel presentations to tradeshows, RFP related calls and leads/inquiries); and call and activity reports. All is entered into the client database allowing access any time as well as enabling sales personnel accountability.
• Pre-qualification of companies that are viable business targets.
• Calendar of activities with regional sales blitz and tradeshow participation opportunities and ability to register for events through the system.
• Intelligence data providing immediate insight into the specific needs of prospects and clients as well as access to key decision makers.

For more information about The BT Advantage Program, Sales Connect and The BT Hotel Collection contact:

Debra Taube

Executive VP -Business Development

BT Advantage

dtaube@genares.com

734.495.9700

WWW.BTADVANTAGE.NET

Media Contact:

Marian Gerlich, Ed Placidi

P&G Communications

pgworld@aol.com

818 786 8687 cell: 818 636 6849