PRESS RELEASE Of interest to editors and journalists covering: Travel Industry, Tourism, Hospitality, DotCom, TN Business News CoachQuote.com(R) and VERSYSS Announce Strategic Partnership Company’s Plan to Integrate Technologies to Create the First Complete Suite of Group Tour Business Management Tools PIGEON FORGE, TN and PROVIDENCE, RI ­ July 22, 2004 /Send2Press Newswire/ -- CoachQuote.com(R), the travel industry’s leading online group-booking engine for over four years, announced today a strategic partnership with VERSYSS, a leading developer of transportation and tour management software based in Providence, RI. The partnership, which is being hailed as the first of its kind for the tour and travel industry, will provide motor coach operators and tour operators with the power of CoachQuote.com’s online group-booking engine connected directly to VERSYSS desktop software through a seamless integration between both companies systems. *(Logo: http://www.send2press.com/photoSP/coachquote-01.jpg ) "This is a very exciting endeavor for both our companies; one that has been in the works for quite some time," said Scott Harness, president and CEO, CoachQuote.com. He said soon, by using VERSYSS software, motor coach operators will be able to receive and submit motor coach charter quotes instantly, thus reducing the turn-around time generally associated with generating price quotes and helping to increase their typical booking conversion rates significantly. Likewise, he said, tour operators using VERSYSS tour planning software will have the "power of planning, booking and managing their group tours, saving them valuable time and money." "In this day and age, speed and convenience are really everything, especially when it comes to the people using the Internet for things like planning their travel," said Angela Brady, director of corporate relations, CoachQuote.com. "This partnership really accomplishes that for both our members and for VERSYSS’ customers -- a real win-win for everyone." "We are very excited about the opportunity to work with CoachQuote.com and to bring further benefit to our customers," said Sheryl Miller, executive vice president of VERSYSS. "Both of our companies are truly dedicated to giving our customers tangible results through better automated solutions and we look forward to launching the new features soon." Once integration is complete and deployed, VERSYSS motor coach and tour operator customers will have a unique advantage to their industry counterparts. Motor coach operators, for example, will now be able to respond quicker, even instantly if they wish, to the dozens of charter quote requests that currently come through CoachQuote.com daily, saving them a tremendous amount of time that it typically takes to generate a price quote. Tour operators will also have a unique advantage by being able to create tours quicker and often cheaper than through traditional methods ­ from finding, researching and booking their group hotel rooms to their attraction and theatre tickets. About VERSYSS VERSYSS is a privately held logistics software company with business management applications installed at over 5,000 client sites throughout North America. The goal of VERSYSS is to deliver innovative technology solutions that empower the business community with the information to support financial, administrative and management decisions. We are dedicated to serving our customers within an environment that harnesses creativity, cooperation and innovation while maintaining our commitment to provide the highest quality products and service. About CoachQuote.com CoachQuote.com®, which recently became a subsidiary of Group Travel Planet, is celebrating its fourth year in business. Since its start, it has grown its membership base steadily and today it has over 11,000 supplier members, 9,200-plus of which are hotels located throughout North America ­ hotels that use its extranet system to allocate group inventory and assign net group rates. In addition, the company has maintained an exclusive partnership with the American Bus Association for online bus chartering. At the end of 2003, the company realized gross sales of over $38 million with $19.1 coming from bus chartering and $12.2 coming from online hotel bookings. More information: http://www.coachquote.com Media Contacts: Sheryl Miller of VERSYSS Phone: +1-908-369­1907 smiller@versyss.com Angela Brady of CoachQuote.com(R) Phone: +1-865-428-8878 angela@coachquote.com # # # [ source of news = CoachQuote.com, LLC ] ref: http://www.send2press.com/2archive/2004/pr04-072201-coachquote.txt http://www.send2press.com/2archivePDF/pr04-072201-coachquote.pdf ----------------------------------------------------------------- *IMPORTANT NOTE TO MEDIA: to reach the organization releasing this news, please contact: angela@coachquote.com (media only) If used for publication, please send specimen copy. ----------------------------------------------------------------- S2P-NP/ 0C / TN + RI / Pigeon Forge, Tennessee / USA / English Copr. (c) 2004 Send2Press Newswire. This release was issued on behalf of the above organization, who is solely responsible for accuracy of content, by Send2Press(TM), a unit of Neotrope(R). http://www.Send2Press.com [www.DotComNewswire.com] keywords -------- Group Travel, Motorcoach Travel, website, bus tour, auto, hotel, tourism