UniFocus Client Improves Guest Satisfaction by 20%

Lions Gate Hotel and Other Independents Report Success with UniFocus’ GUESTScope 360-Degree Feedback Solution

Dallas—January 30, 2008 —UniFocus, a global pioneer in the hospitality industry for performance, workforce management and feedback solutions, announced that Lions Gate Hotel has improved guest satisfaction by 20% with the utilization of GUESTScope. Lions Gate Hotel and Conference Center is one of an increasing number of independent hotels and management companies now using GUESTScope® to get a 360- degree view of their guests’ experience and reaping the business benefits that follow.

Lions Gate is a 134-room property in McClellan, Calif., featuring 40,000 square feet of meeting space. Among other independent properties reporting success with UniFocus’ GUESTScope® is the Schweitzer Mountain Resort in Sand Point, Idaho, and Milestone Hospitality Management, which operates three independent, fullservice resorts in the northeastern United States. The recent move by these non-affiliated hotels follows a similar trend by luxury hotels, high-end resorts and branded properties to utilize GUESTScope to compile and analyze feedback, then to apply this knowledge to improve overall operations and profitability.

“We now know of guest issues instantly as opposed to after the fact or even not at all,” said Lions Gate General Manager Randy Zimmerman. “By being constantly in touch with the ’voice of the customer,’ we’ve improved our overall guest satisfaction by approximately 20 percent in just the few months we’ve been using GUESTScope. Our customers appreciate the quick, immediate contact from us, and they seem genuinely thrilled that not only are we taking the time to read their concerns, but actually acting on them.

“In short,” he added, “we’re a better hotel now.”

UniFocus executives have provided technology leadership to the hospitality industry for more than 20 years. The Dallas-based firm provides proven technology solutions to convention bureaus, hotels and resorts that enable operators to more efficiently manage their workforce and gain a 360-degree view of the customer experience. Equipped with superior business intelligence and labor management technology, UniFocus clients can more effectively optimize quality, satisfaction, operational efficiency and profitability — with a higher ROI.

“We recognize the value of immediate guest feedback, and we wanted to have a more scientific approach to listening to the ’voice of the customer,’” noted Zimmerman. “We wanted a system that would enable us to measure our compliance with hotel standards and overall guest satisfaction. We chose GUESTScope because it met all of our needs better than any system we found on the market.”

Lions Gate installed GUESTScope in June 2007. Since then, Zimmerman said, the feedback obtained from the property’s guests has helped identify key drivers of guest satisfaction and has allowed management to quantify and qualify guest issues.

Devin Marx, Director of Lodging at the Schweitzer Mountain Resort in Sand Point, Idaho, echoes Zimmerman’s opinion of GUESTScope’s effectiveness.

“Our properties are independents, so we had no automated guest-satisfaction measure,” Marx said. “We shopped around, and found UniFocus had all we wanted and needed in its GUESTScope product. It’s provided us with an excellent tool to measure our successes and set our goals. The guest-correspondent feature is especially useful, in addition to being fast and convenient.

“The reporting feature is also excellent,” he said. “We now get monthly reports and query data regarding our services, and they show us how we score according to our past history and in comparison to similar properties in the market.”

The Schweitzer Mountain complex is made up of the 82-room Selkirk Lodge and the 50-room White Pine Lodge, in addition to condos operated by Schweitzer Property Management. The lodging facilities installed GUESTScope nearly a year ago.

Another beneficiary of GUESTScope is Milestone Hospitality Management. Among the many hotels that they operate are three independent, full-service resorts that cater to business and leisure travelers as well as to meetings and conferences: the 318-room Lancaster Host Resort in Lancaster, Pa.; the 156-room Chateau Resort and Conference Center in Tannersville, Pa.; and the 233-room Sturbridge Host Hotel in Sturbridge, Mass. Milestone installed GUESTScope in each of these properties in the third quarter of 2007.

“We were familiar with the UniFocus GUESTScope product prior to engaging their services for our three independent resorts,” said Lea Ann Kish, Chief Operating Officer of Milestone Hospitality Management, which has offices in Boca Raton, Fla., New York, and Washington. “UniFocus has a very good reputation in the industry for providing innovative products with respect to measuring customer feedback. GUESTScope provides our independent properties with instant electronic access to performance results and detailed customer feedback so that we can implement a real time response to product and service improvement strategies. It also allows us to benchmark our performance to like hotels in the category.”

“This kind of positive feedback from non-affiliated hotels and managers of independent properties is indicative of the versatility and applicability of GUESTScope in any kind of lodging scenario,” said Mark Heymann, President and CEO of UniFocus. “We’re pleased to be partnering with these fine hotels and management companies, and our relationships serve as validation to everyone in the industry that our products, services and solutions are among the most valuable in terms of helping organizations increase operational performance in a wide spectrum of areas.”

In addition to the capabilities mentioned above, GUESTScope features include:

• Sharp focus on measuring crucial outcomes that really matter in the customer experience: Satisfaction, Intent to Return/Recommend, and Value (The SIRV Monitor).
• Patented components that deliver proven results through brief, easy-to-understand questions that increase response rate.
• Training and support staff with vast hospitality and service industry experience.
• Comprehensive trending and comparative data analysis that furnishes the clearest insight into operational strengths and weaknesses.
• Benchmarking analysis that provides understanding of a property’s competitive position.
• Extensive report drill-down capabilities that get to the level of detail needed to diagnose results—even to tracking the performance of a particular room.
• Advanced open-ended comment search capabilities that quickly provide in-depth understanding of the “whys” behind results.

  About the Lions Gate Hotel and Conference Center

  The Lions Gate Hotel and Conference Center is a 134-room property in McClellan, Calif., that features up to 40,000 square feet of flexible meeting space. Located about 10 miles from downtown Sacramento, the property is conveniently centered near McClellan Business Park, dining, shopping, golfing and other popular area activities. For more information, visit the Lions Gate Web site at www.lionsgatehotel.com.

  About the Selkirk Lodge and White Pine Lodge

  In the heart of the vibrant Schweitzer Mountain Resort Village near Sand Point, Idaho, the Selkirk Lodge and White Pine Lodge are premier destination mountain resorts offering the ultimate in wintertime ski-in, ski-out convenience and summertime hike-in, hike-out convenience. The Selkirk Lodge features 82 deluxe, slopeside rooms and suites, many of which are equipped with wet bar, microwave and refrigerator and jetted tubs. The White Pine Lodge features 50 fully furnished one- and two-bedroom suites with complete kitchen, gas fireplace, private balconies, soaking tub, TV with VCR and high-speed wireless Internet access. For more information, visit www.schweitzer.com.

  About Milestone Hotel Partners

  With offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Boca Raton, Fla., Milestone Hotel Partners is an amalgam of four principal investment groups that acquires hotel real estate. The company owns and operates 14 properties representing nearly 2,500 rooms, with brands that include Hilton, Holiday Inn, Best Western, Days Inn and Microtel as well as independent properties. In the past 10 years, Milestone has been involved in the acquisition of more than 40 hotels located throughout the United States with an aggregate value in excess of $500 million. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.milestonehotels.com..