Netting benefits of online travel

SYDNEY 4 June 2003: At a time when the travel industry is perceived to be slumping, an Australian owned accommodation booking site is celebrating its successful first year of business – reporting sky rocketing growth rates.

RatesToGo (www.ratestogo.com) a last minute hotel booking service, owned by Asia Pacific’s largest online accommodation booking provider, Flairview Travel, has grown its unique visitor numbers an average of 140 per cent a month since its beginning in May last year.

Starting with 100 hotels in Australia alone, RatesToGo now boasts almost 1,500 properties in 13 countries across the globe with the company recently adding Germany to its extensive destination list which already includes the likes of France, Belgium, Austria, New Zealand and Singapore.

However the success of RatesToGo is not just limited to this one site. Flairview Travel’s other site – full service accommodation booking domain, HotelClub (www.hotelclub.com.au) — also continues to experience incredible growth rates. Together the sites attract almost two million unique visitors a month, growing Flairview Travel’s business by as much as 500 per cent annually.

HotelClub features over 6,000 hotels in 35 countries and 750 cities worldwide where bookings can be made 12 months in advance.

Flairview Travel’s marketing director, Ms Chloe Lim, has attributed the company’s continual overall growth to the Internet changing the way consumers book. In particular, during periods of social and political unrest, consumers become more prudent with their expenditure, they seek value and want to search for suitable price propositions.

“The flexibility of communicating via the Internet means Flairview Travel is able to change its marketing strategies, localise content and communication to adjust quickly to local or international situations.

“While the number of people travelling internationally may still be low, bookings on our sites have shown people are going for safer options and opting to travel domestically. Because we offer localised inventory – at greatly reduced rates – in so many different countries around the world, we’re managing to pick up a lot of trade in localised markets.

“For example, we anticipated that people would be looking for local holiday options following the war in Iraq and SARS outbreak, so we segmented our markets and focused on securing strong domestic deals for each,” said Ms Lim.

Further success can be attributed to both sites offering unique features such as multi lingual capabilities. RatesToGo features its service in eight languages including French, German, Japanese and Spanish while HotelClub features seven languages.

The sites also provide an additional sales channel to hotels to help shift distressed stock in large volumes which would have otherwise been left unsold.

As part of its collaboration with travel agents, Flairview Travel has launched an affiliate version of RatesToGo – making it the world’s first B2B last minute hotel solution. The booking engine provides a full affiliate solution for travel agents, coined “white label” that can be customised to the brand and colours of any agency group. The engine delivers instant confirmation to the customer and a work-free commission to the travel agent.

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For further information please contact:
Lisa Pickard / Nicole Reading
Icon Communications
Tel: 02 9231 1103
Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Chloe Lim
HotelClub.net
Tel: 02 8263 5106
Email: [email protected]

About HotelClub
HotelClub (www.hotelclub.com.au) is Australia’s largest online accommodation provider offering hotel bookings for up to 12 months ahead. It offers a choice of over 6,000 hotels – at savings of up to 60% – in 35 countries and 750 cities worldwide. It is the only Australian website to feature downloadable maps of hotel locations. HotelClub a global online travel/accommodation service and features its services in seven languages, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Its head office is in Sydney with a further nine offices in France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About RatesToGo
RatesToGo.com (www.ratestogo.com) is a last minute accommodation booking service featuring rates that are at least 60% less than usual hotel rates. It offers bookings up to three weeks in advance (similar sites offer 14 days in advance) for accommodation, ranging from two to five star hotels, across 13 countries worldwide including Australia as well as popular destinations such as France, Netherlands, Spain, Hong Kong, Malaysia and New Zealand. RatesToGo.com is the only accommodation website in Australia to offer a lowest rate guarantee – find a cheaper deal and RatesToGo.com will match it. Services are available in eight languages – Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.