Our recent press release was published today in "The Daily Herald" - St. Maarten's local newspaper.
One website, 100 island restaurants - DineSXM.com - See it, like it and book it!
Just in time for the Holidays, the DineSXM table reservation service and online dining guide is celebrating the addition of its 100th restaurant profile to their website. Launched in early 2008, and now in its second full season, it is the only place on St. Maarten and St. Martin that lets visitors make a confirmed online table booking ahead of their visit to the island.
Besides offering some of the most comprehensive restaurant descriptions, the site lets registered visitors voice their opinion on places that they have recently dined at. A five-point scale is used to rate the food quality, degree of service, ambiance and decor, value for money, and whether the guest would recommend the establishment to their friends.
"Every day, hundreds of people count on DineSXM to find reliable and up to date information before deciding which restaurant they will visit" - says Norbert Marrale, one of DineSXM's founders. Explaining how visitors use the site to make their online booking, he notes: "It literally takes less than 10 seconds to book a table. This is a very helpful and much liked feature, since the process is hassle-free and saves both the guest and the restaurant owner a lot of time."
Behind the scenes, the website uses its DineMonkey booking software to make sure that a table is indeed available for the guest's party at their chosen date and time. In case the restaurant is already booked, the software will offer alternate times that are still available. The booking process itself is almost fully automated, including the sending of notifications and reminders. Restaurant owners and guests can always log in to DineSXM to check their pending reservations and update their statuses as needed.
Until this summer, DineSXM.com simply provided profiles of restaurants that could be booked online through its service. Now, based on feedback from its visitors, the site has been upgraded to allow all restaurants on the island to be listed for free. Those free "mini listings" are created as an extra service and help visitors to find basic information about each establishment.
Marrale, a former executive director at SHTA, is very familiar of the ins and outs of our island's hospitality sector. Aware of the fact that restaurants across the island are going through some really tough times, he points out that business owners should use such free listings as a stepping stone to grow their presence. Offering full profiles for just $450 a year, DineSXM is helping its affiliated establishments to become more visible on the Internet at a very reasonable price. The service also includes various forms of additional free promotion, such as regular "tweets" about island restaurants, a blog that highlights special events, and a very successful Facebook "fan" page that has grown to more than 400 followers in just four months. The site is expected to dish up 20,000 restaurant profiles a month between now and the end of the season. "Our numbers speak for themselves" says the confident DineSXM webmaster.
For the future, plans include enabling hotels and tour operators to make group bookings online, and the addition of restaurant videos and full menus that can be downloaded. DineSXM is also preparing for the upcoming launch of its affiliate booking engine, a feature that lets visitors of other St. Maarten and St. Martin travel websites make a confirmed booking while using the company's DineMonkey booking platform.
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