Lowcost unveils ‘big’ expansion plans for Hoteling.com offshoot

Lowcost Travel Group’s hotel-only offshoot Hoteling.com has unveiled “big” expansion plans including the addition of five countries.

Lowcost Travel Group’s hotel-only offshoot Hoteling.com has unveiled “big” expansion plans including the addition of five countries.

Hoteling, which launched last October, is now live in 32 countries and has grown its product range in that time to more than 350,000 hotels, with plans to offer at least 400,000 by the end of the year.

Content on the site is fully “localised” and multi-language so that users in Switzerland, for example, can view hotels in French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish or Portuguese.

Hoteling managing director Duncan Morgan said: “We are delighted with the rapid growth of Hoteling.com since our launch last October.

“The site is easy to use and delivers great value deals on a wide range of hotels with a focus on ensuring that the overall booking experience is as smooth as possible for our customers.

“We have introduced live chat in the booking journey into several markets and will roll this out further this year.

“We offer free cancellations on the majority of our hotel inventory to provide our customers with added peace of mind.”

At least five additional countries are scheduled to launch this year including the UAE, Peru and Ecuador.

New partnerships for the brand include Affilired, HotelsCombined and Criteo.

Work is also underway on seamless booking integrations with partners including Trivago Express Booking to “further streamline the reservation process”.

Paul Evans, chief executive of the Lowcost Travel Group added: “The response to our new channel has been very positive with more customers around the world wanting to self-build holidays in a wide range of markets from a simple one-night budget city break to a 14 night beach front five star hotel in the Caribbean.

“We see this a key channel for us in the future as we continue our diversification away from our UK roots.”