Innvest: Americas Hotel On-Line Superstore today announced the selection of Mister Lister, the lodging industry assister, as its main graphic symbol and tour guide through cyberspace. The firm, whose goal is to develop a virtual one stop shopping mall on the Internet for the lodging industry, believes that Mister Lister will create brand awareness for its Web site.
Innvest partner Deirdre Murphy indicated that the firm knows its mission is twofold.

" Naturally, we need to build out a very useful Internet Web site for the lodging industry. However, weve also got to get everyone using the Internet so they can get to the "Innvest" site in order to take advantage of it and that means getting people to feel comfortable going on line. We hope that Mister Lister, the lodging industry assister, will give people a warm and fuzzy feeling about us and come visit the "Innvest" site."

The idea for Mister Lister, the lodging industry assister, developed serendipitously. Whether the visitor is interested in buying, selling, financing, furnishing, franchising or consulting advice regarding hotels, Mister Lister will help to meet their needs."Innvests" central raison detre is to provide information on hundreds of hotel businesses for sale at one location on the Internet. Brokers, owners and buyers are all invited to use the site to accomplish their goals. This hotel information is generally referred to in the trade as hotel listings. However, it quickly became apparant that the siting of a critical mass of hotel listings in one location would, over time, attract many of the industrys decision-makers to this Internet location.

Therefore, product and service providers would naturally want to get their message across, at the click of a button, to this particular audience. And, the user will be able to get detailed product, service and contact information on numerous alternative choices equally as quickly. So, the interactive listing of information in a broad range of categories became apparent, thus the birth of Mister Lister.
Innvest partner Deirdre Murphy said that the firm had developed a series of "Perils of Pauline" type cartoon strips featuring Mister Lister that itll be distributing to the national hospitality press in the near future. The strips will compare how business is currently conducted with the more efficient interactive way that people will soon be able to do business at one location, or superstore, on The Net. "After all" Ms. Murphy says. "the decision for most busnesses is no longer whether youll be on the Internet, or when youre going on-line, but rather where you intend to set up your cyberspace location once youre there. If everyone in the industry shops in one store, it simply makes doing business for everyone that much easier."

The Innvest site, Americas Hotel On-Line Superstore, will feature e-mail reply and downloading interactive capability, a windows environment for easy getting around, and categories that include hotel businesses for sale, real estate broker profiles, product and service providers, franchise information, educational and meetings information, and employment opportunities. Advertisers will be able to provide detailed product or service information to interested visitors so business will be more efficient to conduct, with everyone getting the benefit of comparison shopping and easy access to the advertisers appropriate contact person.

Mister Lister will be the tour guide for visitors to the site and will be featured in all marketing and promotion done by "Innvest." A portion of the sites profits will be donated to the Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Motel Association, according to Ms. Murphy. The Internet address for the site is http://www.innvest.com and it will be opening for business in May, 1996.