Mantis Collection is Trust International's New Client in South Africa

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. October 14, 2008

FRANKFURT, Germany / PORT ELIZABETH, RSA, August 8, 2008. As the Mantis Collection completed implementation of Trust International's newly upgraded Internet Booking Engine (IBE) on 3rd July 2008, they became Trust's first hospitality group client based in South Africa, and they became the first group to sign an IBE-only contract with Trust, a leading provider of reservation services and distribution technology for the hospitality industry.

The prestigious Mantis Collection consists of world famous game reserves and boutique hotels with a presence in South Africa, England, Scotland and Europe. It is a collection of some of the world's finest luxury resorts -- each individually selected, inspired by its own unique location and recognizing the importance of wildlife, culture, beauty and individuality.

The IBE implementation is a major step for Mantis as it takes its first steps toward electronic distribution and direct-to-consumer marketing. Previously the majority of its reservations were booked manually by phone or fax, with most placed by South Africa-based tour operators with allotments.

Mantis' new strategy is already paying off. Paul Gardiner, International Marketing Director for Mantis Collection, said, "We've already started seeing the benefits of our decision to implement Trust's IBE by generating numerous bookings in the first week after implementation - and that is without any marketing of the site yet. We serve guests all over the world and clearly many of them prefer to research and book their travel destinations online. We're very excited about the booking potential the Trust IBE can provide once we kick off our marketing efforts."

He noted, "Trust has an excellent international track record of delivering best of breed technology solutions. While we are starting out solely with the IBE, we wanted to streamline our operational efficiencies by eliminating time consuming and error prone manual processes; while offering our clients a visually appealing, comprehensive, easy-to-use booking experience. We also wanted a 'future-proof' solution whereby our technology partner could offer other products and services that could help us grow our distribution network worldwide and accommodate our expansion into other international markets in the coming years. We expect to add global distribution service (GDS) and Internet distribution service (IDS) connectivity as our next steps, and Trust's connectivity to all the GDSs and their quick, easy and accurate rate loading and intuitive interface were certainly major factors in our decision."

Trust stands out for it ability to provide responsive service to Mantis' operations team based in Port Elisabeth, South Africa. With Trust's Frankfurt headquarters in the same time zone as Port Elisabeth, communication between Trust and Mantis' staffs via email and phone is seamless.

"As broadband becomes more affordable and is rolled out throughout Southern Africa, Trust is excited to be partnering with the prestigious Mantis Collection as they take a leadership role in adopting the new online technologies in their local market," said Graham Bray, Trust International VP of Sales in EMEA and a South African himself. "With this partnership we continue to expand our global presence in existing and emerging markets and we are well positioned to meet the complex electronic distribution needs of a wider audience," Bray noted. "Our holistic approach and strength as an integrator to multiple systems/distribution channels, along with exceptionally consistent customer support services, will make it easy for Mantis to transition to electronic distribution. At the same time, our IBE will make it monumentally easier for potential customers worldwide to research and book their reservations. We are looking forward to unlocking the value of the Internet and electronic distribution for Mantis."