IBC Brings Relationship Management to Independent Hotels via Strategic TrustYou Partnership

Munich and Phoenix -- IBC (InnDependent Boutique Collection), a leading provider of hospitality technologies for independent hotels and alternative lodging, today announced an agreement with TrustYou, the world's largest guest feedback platform, to bring guest feedback management via its platform to IBC customers. Through this integration, independent hotels and soft brands using the proprietary IBC hotel management platform will have free access to the TrustYou Stars Lite platform that captures and markets post-stay feedback from guests. The majority of a hotel's own collected reviews are stored in hidden databases, unseen by travelers and unused by hotels. Using actionable guest surveys, TrustYou Stars Lite will make review content visible to the masses.

"IBC members can now rely on the world's largest guest feedback platform to drive higher guest satisfaction scores by monitoring, surveying and acting on reviews - free of charge," said Michael Menzel, CRO and VP Strategic Partnerships at TrustYou. "Collecting guest feedback is essential to improving the hotel product and influencing future bookings. By collecting and sharing guest feedback with TrustYou, independent hotels can impact their bookings on a wider scale. This data will help identify strengths and hone in on areas that need improvement. With the TrustYou Stars Lite platform, IBC hotels can seamlessly launch surveys and collect guest feedback, push reviews to Google, positively influence their TrustScore and Meta-Reviews, market their reviews on their own website, and use the insight to improve the hotel product."

"Being able to boost a hotel's visibility on Google is important to independent owners and operators today," said Pamela Barnhill, IBC president. "The more frequently a property responds to a review, the quicker it will generate new bookings. By partnering with TrustYou, IBC is enabling independent hoteliers with a free solution to enhance the quality of their service by being more responsive to online reviews and help them to gain better search rankings and visibility on all online channels including their own website. We are pleased to add this global company to the IBC Marketplace, a robust CRS with distribution and soft brand benefits."

According to a recent consumer survey report:

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

To find out more about the IBC / TrustYou partnership or to arrange an interview, please contact Barb Worcester for IBC at [email protected], and for TrustYou, contact Katharina Sickora at [email protected].

About TrustYou

TrustYou, the world's largest guest feedback platform, provides hotels with insights to improve their guest experience and market to future guests. Guest feedback informs 95% of booking decisions, and TrustYou's guest feedback platform incorporates hundreds of millions of hotel reviews, surveys, social comments, and direct messages through SMS, email, Facebook Messenger and more. This information is analyzed along each step of a traveler's journey, including booking and pre-stay queries, real-time guest request, and post-stay feedback, to generate actionable insights for 500,000 hotels. TrustYou's platform is made up of various components, including TrustYou Meta-Reviews*, verified global review summaries displayed on travel and search sites like Google, KAYAK, and Hotels.com; TrustYou Messaging, real-time guest messaging service; TrustYou Stars, an advanced guest satisfaction survey tool; TrustYou Analytics, the world's leading online reputation management tool and the accompanying app TrustYou Radar. PMS, CRM, IBE and other hotel software providers can make use of TrustYou Connect, a partner program to integrate TrustYou's guest feedback platform with its products to help their hotel clients to positively influence every stage of the guest journey. Find more information on TrustYou and the guest feedback platform at www.trustyou.com. *TrustYou Meta-Reviews only contain verified reviews and do not include reviews from TripAdvisor.

About IBC (InnDependent Boutique Collection)

IBC Hospitality Technologies is a leading provider of hospitality technologies for independent hotels. Our portfolio of products and services includes the proprietary IBC hotel management platform which makes available its managed distribution, advanced CRS, and soft brand benefits to independent hotels, villas, and B&B's. More than half the world's hotel properties are independently-owned. Online search has placed all new pressures on the small business owners who run these properties. With IBC, hotels can reclaim their revenue and guest data from the OTAs while maintaining their independence from soft brands and chains. Finally, independent hotels can take back their bookings. Learn how at www.ibchospitality.com.

Travel Technology Partnerships, Mergers & Acquisitions