NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Cambridge, MA, United States, 11/25/2009 - Hotels, restaurants and retail stores, are often hit up for donated items for the sake of non-profit fundraising, some receiving hundreds of requests a month for donated items. With the AIRS system, hotels and brands handling these requests.

cMarket/BiddingForGood, the leading online auction platform connecting charity auctions, consumers, and commercial item donors, has successfully implemented their interactive Auction Item Request System (AIRS) into companies to manage item donor programs. AIRS offers benefits such as good community relations, professionalism, and even offers leads for second revenue streams to help a hotel's bottom line. Companies like The Four Seasons, Brooks Brothers and The Liberty Hotel have jumped on board using this cutting edge technology coined as the "Open Table" for charity item requests.

Hotels, restaurants and retail stores, are often hit up for free donated items for the sake of non-profit fundraising, some receiving hundreds of requests a month for donated items. With the AIRS system, hotels and brands handling these types of requests are able to track how much exposure they receive in return for a donation while significantly reducing the time spent handling requests.

Early reports show that hotels using AIRS have been impressed and surprised that the system has been generating leads for banquet and food/beverage sales. This allows hotels to leverage second revenue streams that are vital in today's economy. In fact, The Liberty Hotel, a nationally recognized hotel located in Boston, MA, is reporting that 73% of requests are now asking for information on banquet facilities providing a steady flow of leads.

When someone walks into a hotel and asks for a free donated night for a charity auction, hotels can now direct them to their website to fill out an electronic online item request form. This drives organizations to the hotel's website where they click on an item request link to easily complete their type of request. The system immediately sends the organization an email acknowledging the request and informs them of when the hotel will be back in touch. All requests that were previously handled on the phone, on paper or by mail, are now directed in one centralized electronic location. "AIRS offers the perfect solution to what has been a thorn in the side of hotel administration for decades now," says luxury hotelier Robin Brown.

AIRS notifies participating hotels of requests as they come in and then allows them to send automated approval letter or letter of decline in a timely fashion. For those requests which are denied, not all is lost for the requesting organization as within the response letter is an offer from BiddingForGood to find donated items for them. The organization will then have an opportunity to run an online auction with BiddingForGood, using supplied donated items, including many luxury brands, in efforts to raise funds for their organization.

Forward thinking hotels have started using this latest technology offered to explore the untapped arena of charity auctions. The Liberty Hotel was one of the first to implement the system and has started to track the amount of requests they receive, the requests that have been approved or declined, what type of request, what type of organizations have requested items and what percentage of the items donated are being used for specific purposes. They have a dashboard of all their request information, including monthly tracking charts all in one place.

The program has had a welcomed reception by all those using the system as of date. The system literally takes moments to set up and offers tracking that would normally take hours to do on a weekly basis. "Charity auction requests are one of the most inefficient parts of my job. I'm glad a system has come along to make this administrative headache go away" says Sean Reardon, VP Marketing, Liberty Hotel, currently using the AIRS system.

cMarket/BiddingForGood (cmarket.com) is offering a FREE implementation of their interactive Auction Item Request System (AIRS) to manage item donor programs more effectively.

Agency / Source: cMarket / BiddingForGood, Inc.

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