cStar Technologies Inc. Expanding Hospitality Genie™ Suite of Products

 to High Revenue Generating Hotel Parking

Toronto, ON - April 16, 2009 - Building on the success of Hospitality Genie™, cStar's award winning suite of hotel guest room key card/RFID wristband cashless solutions for the Hospitality industry, and commemorating the first successful full year of hotel guest room key paid parking at one of Starwood's premier hotels, cStar Technologies Inc. announces the addition of SkyGate Parking™ Management Modules for guest room key card/RFID wristband paid parking solution for hotel guests, visitors and staff.

This innovative cashless parking payment solution provides hotel properties the convenience of allowing their guests to use their guest room key cards/RFID wristbands or non-hotel guests to use prepaid cards/RFID wristbands to access parking facilities, eliminating the need for a separate parking access card and expensive payment kiosks.  A simple step at front desk check‑in through the Property Management System (PMS) adds parking charges to guests' room bills and grants parking access through guest room key cards/RFID wristbands via cStar's SkyGate^® MVS-Series reader/wireless communications devices located at the parking entrances and exits.  Similarly, prepaid parking access cards/RFID wristbands are also created at the front desk for visitors and staff.  Prepaid cards/RFID wristbands use the same hotel-branded media (cards/RFID wristbands), providing for continuous brand awareness.  Credit card payment acceptance is also available.

SkyGate Parking™ Management Module, running on cStar's SkyGate^® Server ‑ Hospitality, provides cashless, real-time, on-line parking management through cStar's robust wireless Local Area Network (wLAN).  With guest room key card/RFID wristband parking access and credit card payment acceptance, hotels enjoy the benefits of dynamic, real-time, on-line parking management; use of the same guest room key card/RFID wristband for guest room and parking access; recovery of revenues, with the anti-pass back feature of the system, previously lost to parking access card sharing abuse; decreased hotel parking management costs; cost savings from not requiring a separate parking attendant; and no wireless communication charges.  In addition, hotels do not need to invest in expensive payment kiosks and ticket dispensing machines, or expensive cabling/wiring between the parking gates and the payment processing server.

President and CEO of cStar Technologies, Stella Yoon said, "We are continuously looking at ways to expand our Hospitality Genie™ suite of products to enable hoteliers to enjoy added and increased sources of revenue, and at the same time benefit from increased efficiencies and reduced costs.  The addition of SkyGate Parking™ Management gives hoteliers added lucrative parking revenues and makes parking management more efficient and cost-effective. 

With a hotel room key not only can guests enter their rooms; buy drinks, snacks, ice cream, and convenience items from vending machines; pay for games and tokens in the arcade; but now guests can also enter and exit parking, all without guests worrying about having enough cash or correct change, and with the hotel not having to worry about cash-related vandalism and cash handling headaches.  Truly, hotel keys become an e-wallet delivering guest-centric service to hotel guests and at the same time enhance hotel brand image and revenues."

About Hospitality Genie™

cStar's Hospitality Genie™ seamlessly interfaces with the hotels' PMS to deliver this innovative wireless cashless payment technology for vending, arcades, parking, lockers, laundry facilities, etc. for the hospitality industry. Activated by the guest room key card/RFID wristband, this is the only cashless vending solution that eliminates cash in the vending machines, arcade games, token dispensers, etc. by wirelessly approving and posting transactions to the guest folio in real-time. With its robust wireless network communication that can reach from the basement to 40+ floors of concrete buildings, cStar's SkyGate^® cashless payment readers can be readily deployed anywhere on the property without any wiring.  cStar's wireless connectivity is based on an easily deployable dedicated wireless LAN that allows single day deployment of the solution with minimal interruption to hotel operations - downtime at the front desk is counted in minutes. 

About cStar Technologies Inc.

cStar Technologies Inc. is a global provider of wireless (LAN/WAN) data communication solutions for M2M (Machine-to-Machine/huMan) and mobile commerce applications. Protected by multiple patents, its core solutions include wireless, cashless, and remote monitoring and tracking systems for the hospitality, vending, life sciences, and security/defence industries. 

www.cstartech.com