Hotels.com launches local-language sites

Hotels.com, the world’s most visited hotel booking site*, has announced its further expansion into the Eastern European market with the launch of six new local language sites in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Slovakia and Croatia.

The move comes as part of Hotels.com’s continued roll-out across the EMEA region and has seen each of the six sites go live with IP based country recognition, local-language interfaces and local currency pricing.

These launches take the total number of sites operated by Hotels.com in the EMEA region to 32 sites including those in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia and Benelux. The launch of the new local language sites follows hot on the heels of the launches in Greece, Turkey, Czech Republic, Hungary and Iceland at the beginning of 2008.

“The launch of the six new sites marks our continued march eastwards. These are emerging markets for online travel and although the Hotels.com product has been available to these territories through an English language site, we are aware that it is the local language sites that are key to unlocking these markets’ full potential,” comments Patrik Öqvist, Marketing Director EMEA, Hotels.com.

“The online travel sector continues to grow rapidly across the EMEA region and in particular in those markets that are not as mature as our main western European territories. We are confident that the new local language sites will follow in the highly successful footsteps of our existing sites.”

Each of the newly launched sites will reflect the new Hotels.com ‘Wake up Happy’ brand positioning that was launched in the UK in 2007 and throughout Europe in early 2008.

Hotels.com offers a guaranteed price promise: if a customer can find the same deal for less, Hotels.com will match it. The site also has one of the largest independent hotel teams in the industry and has personal relationships with over 40,000 hotels – meaning that users get an honest review of all its properties.

* Hotels.com website is the most visited in the ‘Hotels/Accommodation provider’ category, according to comScore Media Metrix.