Expedia-owned accommodation website Hotels.com has been given a major makeover in four markets across Europe – including the UK – to coincide with the start of a major rebranding exercise. The launch of the new consumer profile for Hotels.com marks the beginning of a concerted effort to support the site’s strong position in the hotel…
Hotels.com unveils overhaul of sites
Expedia-owned accommodation website Hotels.com has been given a major makeover in four markets across Europe – including the UK – to coincide with the start of a major rebranding exercise.
The launch of the new consumer profile for Hotels.com marks the beginning of a concerted effort to support the site’s strong position in the hotel aggregator market as competition continues to grow from new travel portals and meta search engines.
The new sites are also available in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and feature a new tagline ”Wake Up Happy”.
“’Wake up happy’ emphasises Hotels.com’s customer service-led approach,” the company said. “It is intended to move the site from being the sector-generic URL as it becomes more of a consumer brand.”
Hotels.com will also embark on its first ever offline advertising campaign in the third quarter of 2007 on mainstream media channels.
Hotels.com marketing director Patrik Oqvist told Travolution the site’s new positioning would be buoyed by a “significant amount of money” spent on advertising during 2007.
Oqvist said the rebranding will trigger the start of a series of improvements to Hotels.com during 2007, although details of new or overhauled functionality have not been disclosed.
Hotels.com could also be joining its sister brand Expedia by running TripAdvisor user generated content alongside its own reviews of hotels.
“We would not rule it out,” Oqvist said, although he stressed that no such move had been earmarked as yet.
Hotels.com is currently pulling in 80,000 hotels to its network and has introduced interactive mapping and images to the site in the past year.
The rebranding was produced in conjunction with marketing agency Lambie Nairn.
