NEWSPAPER SERVICE FOR HOTELS ADDS UP TO MORE GUEST SATISFACTION

In the past, reading your home town newspaper in Thailand has been a difficult task. Only a few selected titles were available and arrived in Thailand with a two-day delay. For the last three years, one company has changed the way foreign newspapers are being distributed and read in the expat community and in the tourist markets.

NewspaperDirect is the world leader in digital newspaper distribution. Founded in 1999, the company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada and has offices in New York and Vienna. It has agreements to receive content from 400 publishers such as The Times, The Sun, ers in Thailand with international newspapers delivered on their day of publication. Internationally, NewspaperDirect provides its services to the United Nations, the G8 Summits, Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup and many other events and organizations.

The new standard in the hotel industry
With over 400 newspapers from 66 countries available, NewspaperDirect is making its newspapers available through all major retail outlets in Thailand. With its print on demand system, most major hotel operators are now providing their guest with today’s international newspaper. Hotel guests are able to order their home town newspaper and receive it, delivered to their room, on the same morning as published. In most incidents, newspapers are delivered even before they are available at newsstands back home.

Analysts of the hotel and tourism industry consider this personalized service as a standard for four and five star hotels. As Fred R. Muenger, CIO of Hoteltravel.com notes, "Personalized services are what guests remember most about a hotel stay or a Hotel Booking Service. Same day edition newspapers featuring the guest’s name are one of the features we now consider a standard to provide for high end customers."

Many business travelers are now relying on NewspaperDirect to provide them with current business news while traveling abroad. Leisure guests are enjoying the fact that they don’t miss any home news about entertainment, culture and sport while on their holiday.

Marco Seiler, Resident Manager of Amari Boulevard reports "With a rapid increase in point of sales (Bookazine & other retail outlets) around our hotel we also receive increased requests for international newspaper delivery by our guests. The reaction of our guests, when they read today’s newspaper before their friends back home, is very gratifying. And we noticed that if a guest orders the newspaper once, he will order every time he stays with us."

Besides the primary service aspect, there is also an economical benefit as the hotel receives a commission on every sale.

ND Press—Print your own foreign newspapers
Many hotels provide their high profile guests with their favorite newspaper through NewspaperDirect distributors in the major tourist areas. This has been a proven concept as the hotel simply orders their requested newspaper with the local office and receives them, printed in original content and layout, on the same day or early the next morning.

But even for hotels in remote locations such as small islands or up-country, NewspaperDirect is now able to provide a solution. A user-friendly software program called ND Press is now giving any business the opportunity to print any of the 400 newspapers from 60 countries on their own premises. Worldwide, over 900 ND Press stations are active within the first year of introduction.

The only infrastructure requirements to print your own newspapers are an internet connection, a PC and an A3 duplex printer. Should you be interested in joining the many hotels who provide this service, NewspaperDirect will grant trial accounts to let you test its functionality. More information is available by sending your inquiry to headoffice@NewspaperDirect-Thailand.com.