The system is being test-run in Chola Sheraton in Chennai, Windsor Manor in Bangalore, Grand Kakatiya in Hyderabad and Maurya Sheraton in Delhi and the marketing offices in these cities.

As much as Rs 22 crore has been spent by Welcomgroup on this upgradation, including the satellite link, basic equipment and software, say industry sources.

In the first phase, the CRS is expected to be launched in all the seven Sheraton hotels across the country and five welcom.net offices in the four metros and Bangalore by December 1999, said Park Sheraton Hotel & Towers joint managing director Manish Goyal.

Once the hotels go online, their expenditure on STD, fax etc is likely to reduce by 50 to 80 per cent, said Goyal. The initial investment for installation and running cost for each hotel will be around Rs 16.5 lakh for the first year and around Rs 12 lakh per annum subsequently. So, it makes sense for a hotel to opt for it only if its existing expenses on telecom services exceed Rs 1 lakh per month, he said. Park Sheraton currently spends around Rs 2 lakh under this head.

One of the major advantages of going online would be that confirmation of reservations would be instantaneous. No more dialling into Welcomgroup's main server in Delhi for national bookings or waiting for the dedicated gateway of Sheraton in Hong Kong to dial and deal with international bookings.

Also, the current practice of faxing weekly forecast of a hotel's status to welcom.net at Delhi, which feeds it to the central server and re-transmits to all the units, will become redundant, say Welcomgroup officials. Individual bookings can also be done on the hotel major's website, www.welcomgroup.com.

Apart from reservations, all units in the hotel-chain will have access to a guest history, including the likes and dislikes of the guest, once he or she has stayed in any hotel in the chain. That saves the bother for each hotel to record the information separately and the time saved can be spent with the guest for more personalised service, said Goyal.