Passkey, a worldwide leader in online group reservations, announced that Sunstone Hotel Properties, Inc. (SHP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Interstate Hotels and Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: IHR), has chosen to deploy Passkey for online group reservations at twelve of their properties located throughout North America.

Passkey will be offered as a complimentary service for meeting planners arranging events at SHP's major hotel brands including Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham and Crowne Plaza.

"At Sunstone Hotel Properties, we are always looking for ways to stay ahead of the competition and provide our customers with the best service and experience possible," said John Elston, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing at SHP.

"We chose Passkey because we feel it is the best tool available to help increase service levels to our meeting planners and the event experience for all attendees."

Group reservations are a large part of SHP's hotel revenue, typically generating between 20-50% of total revenue at each hotel. For this reason, ensuring that meeting planners become repeat customers is very important to their business.

With Passkey, SHP will be able to offer meeting planners their own customized event-specific hotel reservation Web site. On the site event attendees will be able to make and manage their hotel reservations online, while planners will be given the ability to track hotel block pick-up and reservation status through real-time reports and automatic email updates that review every facet of the process.

SHP will deploy Passkey in twelve hotels that range in size from 199 to 472 guest rooms. In doing so the company demonstrates that hotels of all sizes can benefit from automating the group online reservation process.

"Many people in the industry don't realize that Passkey is not just for large hotels accommodating large events," said Greg Pesik, president and CEO of Passkey.