boo.com Set to Take the Pain Out of Travel Search

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. October 14, 2008

LONDON, UK, May 2, 2007. Anyone who has ever attempted to book travel online knows that the process - research, reviews, price comparison and more - can be a time-consuming and often traumatic process. Search engines deliver millions of results, aggregators promote high commission properties with associated service charges and brochure content needs to be tamed with customer reviews. Meanwhile, the best deals are often located on a hotel's own website.

boo.com, a new type of travel site, aims to end this "circle of gloom," where customers move through multiple platforms to find the hotel that best meets their needs. Combining search engine capabilities, pricing, reviews and social networking with an innovative interface, boo.com is set to change the way online travel is booked.

Ray Nolan, CEO of boo.com said, "Travel is about great experiences, and that should start with the planning and selection process. We've collected all of the key components required to make the right choice and put them together in one site. The traveler is our primary concern. If they're not satisfied, then neither are we."

boo.com offers the ability to instantly access and share thousands of reviews, create a community of friends and research recommendations based on hundreds of thousands of opinions. This "collective wisdom" grants users unparalleled access to information to help them avoid travel nightmares, and enable them to customize their travel plans to best reflect their individual preferences. Travelers can quickly sift through the more than 50,000 hotels in 165 countries available through boo.com, creating a manageable and meaningful handful of choices. If someone needs a hotel with a pool, access to Wifi and child-friendly facilities for less than $150/night, boo.com can conjure one up with a few clicks of the mouse. Hence boo.com's mantra is: "Say what you like, love what you find!"

Meanwhile, boo's unique, unbiased listings allow users to easily choose the hotel that best meets their needs, and then allows them to book directly with the hotel's website.

Users can feel confident in the reliability of boo's reviews by identifying members they trust and getting their opinions on specific hotels, bars, restaurants and local attractions. By creating their own "boo crew" to highlight friends' reviews and push aside the wisdom of the crowd, users are presented with a selection of reviews that represent their own tastes.

Commenting on the former boo.com, a failed fashion and sportswear website with which the current boo.com has no connection, Nolan said, "In a way we are exorcising the ghost of boo's past while respecting the spirit of its bold mission - to create a site that caters to the user, which is loaded with interactivity, results and emotion. Finally boo.com can achieve that vision."

About Web Reservations International

boo.com is owned and operated by Web Reservations International (WRI). WRI delivers online reservations to more than 50,000 properties in 165 countries through a network of owned sites and affiliate partners.

Privately held and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, WRI was founded in 1999 and has offices in Shanghai, San Mateo and Sydney. Since then, it has developed award-winning sites including hostelworld.com, hostels.com and trav.com, and has successful white-label relationships with many of the worlds leading brands.

WRI already processes 70,000 bed-nights per day and handles more than EUR300 million in bookings annually. In the year ending December 2006 WRI generated EBITDA of EUR19m.