FastBooking Launches Only-Recommended-Hotels.com

Internet users' favourite hotels presented on video

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. October 14, 2008

JUNE 21, 2007. FastBooking, the expert for Internet hotel booking solutions, is today launching Only-Recommended-Hotels.com, a hotel booking website which brings together a selection of the best rated hotels by internet users. The website presents each hotel through a video sequence lasting several minutes.

A first in online hotel booking

On its booking websites (FastBooking.com, Hotels-Paris.fr, ...) FastBooking has always provided appraisals of hotels from the comments and ratings given by internet users after their stay in the hotel, and as this service was increasingly popular with its cyber customers, it wanted to develop the concept even further.

By bringing together on a single website the best rated hotels by internet users among its 3500 hotel clients, FastBooking is the only supplier able to provide a unique selection of hand-picked establishments, with a recommendation ranking of over 80%.

'We imagined what it was like to reserve a hotel online. It is not that there are not enough sites available to the public, but when you are faced with endless lists of hotels and comments, both positive and negative, then it can soon become a complete headache', explains Val'erie Rodi, product manager. 'On Only-Recommended-Hotels.com, customers will be able to base their choice on more subjective criteria such as the area or the style of the hotel, as they no longer have to worry about quality standards'.

Strict criteria for inclusion

In order to select the hotels to be featured in Only-Recommended-Hotels.com, FastBooking used the customer feedback surveys filled in by internet users after their hotel stay and then set some strict criteria for inclusion. In this way the overall average rating, the recommendation ranking and the number of opinions were taken into account, but ratings achieved for the welcome given and cleanliness were also scrutinized extremely carefully. If the average rating for either of these two areas falls below 8/10 then the hotel is eliminated. Furthermore, ratings are updated on a daily basis and FastBooking reserves the right to immediately stop listing any hotel that no longer fulfils the required criteria.

Altogether 300 hotels have been chosen from 1 star to 5 star hotels. The site is based around Paris and very shortly the C^ote d'Azur, Venice, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, London and Florence will be added. 'Only-Recommended-Hotels.com is not a luxury site which only lists palaces. That would have been all too easy. In fact we want to prove that you don't have to pay a fortune to be completely satisfied. As an example, the H^otel de Blois which only has one star and offers rooms for less than 60 euros has a 96% recommendation ranking', clarifies Val'erie Rodi.

Moreover, the list of hotels featured on the website will be reviewed annually.

The video is at the hotel's service

To help the internet user make up their mind and give them a clear idea of where they will be staying, Fastbooking has introduced another novel feature. As well as a gallery of 20 photos, a team of professionals has also made a video to provide a thorough introduction to each hotel (bedrooms, public areas, facilities, surroundings ...). Another little extra, this video is available in medium and high resolution, and can be viewed in full-screen mode. It works with Flash which almost all modern PCs are equipped with.

An independent journalist has also visited every hotel and written a detailed description from an unbiased point of view.

As far as ergonomics are concerned, everything has been thought of to make navigation as easy as possible. The website is available in 5 languages, searching can be done by area using an interactive map. Hotels appear according to availability and are pinpointed on a map. Prices, special offers, average rating, recommendation ranking and the number of opinions are visible immediately. And bookings are made in real time and in 24 languages thanks to the booking engine, FastBooking Engine,

Increasing the visibility of hotels on the internet

With Only-Recommended-Hotels.com, FastBooking has confirmed its expansion into the niche area of B to C Retailing. But the site is also very much part of FastBooking's overall aim to help its hotel customers develop their internet presence. As with the company's other websites, only those customers who have the Booking Engine can be featured on Only-Recommended-Hotels.com and the hotel page has a link which takes you directly to the hotel's official website. Furthermore, hotels incur no additional expenses from this new sales channel as they are listed completely free of charge.

'Only-Recommended-Hotels.com was designed with the aim of helping our hotel customers to increase their visibility on the internet. By putting them in the foreground on an innovatory product and by investing almost 300,000 euros to promote the website in the second quarter, we cannot fail to bring extra traffic onto their own websites ', explains Jean Louis Boss, FastBooking's Marketing Director.

Please note that the video is available free of charge to hotels who may use it on their own web sites as they wish.