Hotelly in Press
Feb 2009
Jan 2009
Dec 2008
Nov 2008
06 Feb
The best price comparison travel websites
by Benji Lanyado - Friday 6 February 2009
"Fare comparison sites have come into their own during the recession. Cut the cost of your holiday with our guide to the best, for hotels, flights, car hire and insurance...
Hotelly.com was a close second, but had two distinctive one-ups on the others. First, it has videos of roughly half of the hotels it lists. Second, it is the only hotel comparison site that specifies whether or not tax has been included in the stated price..."
20 Jan
Holiday firms mix business with pleasure
by JAMES ELLIS - Tuesday, January 20, 2009
... " Hotel comparison
Probably the easiest type of website to set up when things are tough, hotel
comparison sites - where you enter an area and dates and they compare prices from other websites to give you the best one
- are flourishing. Sletoh.com features 56,000 hotels and compares prices from ten other sites.
It also gives you a Google map reference for each property.
Hotelly.com, on the other hand, features a quarter of a million hotels,
compares prices from 36 other sites and, to help you along, handily has video reviews of many of the rooms. Go4travel.com, meanwhile,
has prices for 70,000 hotels."...
07 Jan
Entries for Globes Innovation in Travel Award hit a record high
Travel Weekly has received a record number of entries for the Innovation in Travel Award, one of 40 categories in the Globe Travel Awards.
The unprecedented response proves that travel companies are recognising that innovation is more important than ever, as the industry looks at new ways to thrive during the economic downturn.
A panel of high profile judges met at the Durrants Hotel in London last month to whittle the 42 entries down to just 13.
TW Group publishing director Simon Ferguson, who led the judging, said: "The high number of entries this year shows that, despite tough economic conditions, innovation continues to thrive in the Travel industry. The range and scope of ideas made the judges' task particularly difficult."
Fellow judge and award sponsor Cheapflights general manager Francesca Ecsery added: "Innovation is high on everyone's agenda at the moment and we had some good entries. Now is the time to think creatively about ways of adding value."
The final list showcases the diversity of the industry, from travel technology company Traveltek to video and price comparison site hotelly.com, owned RateGain Solutions.
The nature of the innovations also revealed a trend towards mobile communications, such as Mobile Trails' Travel Buddy product and British Airways' iphone application, as consumers constantly seek new more convenient ways to access information.
TripAdvisor won last year's Innovation in Travel award.
The Innovation in Travel Award is one of only two judged by industry experts, the other 38 categories are voted for by travel agents.
Agents and suppliers will honour the winners at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on January 27.
08 Dec
RateGain introduces Hotelly.com in India
Aims to attract 1, 00,000 users a month by February 2009
By Anita Jain | Mumbai
Noida-based travel technology company RateGain has introduced a hotel comparison
portal named www.hotelly.com in India. The main objective of the portal, which was
introduced in the UK in the first week of November 2008 and later in India, is to
offer price comparison facilities to end consumers along with videos, pictures and
reviews of over 1, 00, 000 hotels around the world. Currently, the portal is working
with about 40 international Online Travel Agents (OTAs) for gaining access to prices
offered to them and directing users to these 40 OTA websites. The portals include
hotels.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, octopustravel.com, gtahotels.com, hotelclub.com,
booking.com, venere.com, hotel-board.com, etc.
Talking about future plans for hotelly.com, Bhanu Chopra, CEO, RateGain said, “We
are mostly targeting the outbound traffic of India as we offer hotels around the
world and most of the OTAs we are working with are international. Since we are operating
in the Indian market, we might look at working with Indian OTAs in future. But currently
our prime focus is to increase the penetration in the Indian market on a B2C level
and generate about 1, 00,000 users a month by February 2009.”
Chopra also informed that the Unique Selling Point (USP) of hotelly.com is hotel
videos that will be offered on the portal. “We are going to offer virtual hotel
experience to the end consumer through user generated videos. The price comparison
on various OTAs will offer best price to the end consumer.” The portal offers an
option wherein the user can upgrade their hotel search by using the Value Finder
option. In this option, users can filter their search by user generated reviews,
locations and also price.
RateGain won second place in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 India Program List. It
provides technology solutions to the OTA and hotel industry, has a client base in
the UK and US, informed Chopra adding that “Since the concept of online bookings
is gaining ground in India as well, we are working out strategies to enhance our
customer base in India too.” RateGain offers solutions in areas of revenue management,
distribution, sales and marketing. For hotels it offers solutions like Rate Shopping,
Channel Management, Marketing Intelligence etc.
12 Nov
New website Hotelly to start trials next week
(12 November 2008)
Hotelly.com, a website combining price comparison technology with videos of hotels
and reviews, is to be trialled from this week.
The site, scheduled to go live to consumers in January, has been developed by travel
technology specialist RateGain.
Hotelly is based on a pay-per-click model and has already signed up about 36 companies
including Gullivers Travel Associates, LateRooms and HotelClub to provide accommodation
to the service.
The site has been developed to offer consumers a more rounded service bringing together
user-generated reviews, video clips and price comparison.
Technology within the site includes a ValueFinder tool enabling customers to narrow
down their search based on a number of criteria including price, location and star
rating.
The holiday packaging side of Hotelly is being run by On Holiday Group, which is
also providing its Fresh TV video clips to the site.
Announcing the launch at World Travel Market, On Holiday Group chief executive Steve
Endacott said: "The quality of clicks I'm going to get is going to be better
than what's already out there."
OHG will use its existing flight search and bed-bank platform to provide the flight
and hotel packaging element for Hotelly. The plan is to rank accommodation suppliers
initially on their customer service and how long it takes them to answer the phone.
However, over a period of time, the website will gather consumer feedback on the
overall service from providers and rank them accordingly.
RateGain already offers the travel and hospitality industry four business-to-business
products including its SearchView technology, enabling companies to track their
position online compared with competitors and NetReport price comparison tool, already
used by On Holiday Group across its retail sites.
11 Nov
An Interview with Steve Endacott, On Holiday Group Part 2
Graham McKenzie interviews Steve Endacott, Chief Executive for On Holiday Group.
In Part 2 of 2 they discuss a new portal that is launching: providing review comparisons,
large databases, and quick searches.
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Presenter:
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Graham Mckenzie |
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Appearance By:
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Event:
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World Travel Market 2008 |
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Event Date:
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11 November, 2008 |
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Location:
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London |
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Country:
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England |
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Category:
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Conference Coverage |
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Sub Category:
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World Travel Market (WTM) 2008 |
11 Nov
WTM: Hotelly launches with 220,000 videos
Lee Hayhurst
A new holiday search website will enable holidaymakers to choose agents and operators
based on customer ratings for the quality of service they receive.
Hotelly.com is currently live in a beta test format, but will in January launch
a dynamic packaging feature created for it by the On Holiday Group.
The site has been set up by travel technology firm Rategain and claims to be the
first website offering search based on price and customer reviews at the same time.
Eventually users will be able to narrow down their search based on user ratings
of properties and then ratings that are given to retailers.
A trade focus group of advertisers including Travelzest, On Holiday Group, Hays
Travel, the Co-operative Travel, Bookable Holidays, Freedom Direct and Youtravel
was due to meet on Thursday to discuss what their requirements are.
A group representing consumers will be put together in the new year.
Hotelly.com will make its money on a “cost per action” basis, for instance if a
consumer clicks on a website link or calls a call centre, and banner advertising.
Vishal Jain, Rategain product head, said because the site focussed on consumers’
requirements he expected it to quickly establish itself among the top meta-search
sites.
“The whole focus is how we can make it easier for the consumer to make their decision,”
he said.
“This is a first attempt to actually find the true value of an offer because in
today’s world price is not the only parameter.
“People are relying more and more on what other people are saying, whether its in
written or video format, which is extremely powerful.” The site links to 220,000
videos.
On Holiday Group chief executive Steve Endacott said Hotelly had done an amazing
job consolidating the many thousands of user reviews and videos on the internet.
His Fresh Holidays customer videos are among the reviews on the site as well as
others shot by Hotelly.
He said this was an opportunity for smaller companies not able to discount to compete,
because retailers featured on the site would be competing on quality rather than
on price.
11 Nov
WTM08 - Hotelly set for UK beta launch
Hotelly.com, a website combining price comparison technology with videos of hotels
and reviews, is to launch in beta this week. The site, which is scheduled to go
live to consumers in January, has been developed by travel technology specialist
RateGain.
Hotelly is based on a pay-per-click model has already signed up about 36 companies
including GTA, laterooms and hotelclub to provide accommodation to the service.
The site has been developed to offer consumers a more rounded service bringing together
user-generated reviews, video clips and price comparison.
Technology within the site includes a ValueFinder tool enabling customers to narrow
down their search based on a number of criteria including price, location and star
rating. The holiday packaging holiday side of Hotelly is being run by On Holiday
Group, which is also providing its Fresh TV video clips to the site.
OHG chief executive Steve Endacott said: "I think the quality of clicks I'm going
to get is going to be better than what's already out there." OHG will use its existing
flight search and bedbank platform to provide the flight and hotel packaging element
for hotelly. The plan is initially rank accommodation suppliers on their customer
service and how long it takes them to answer the phone. However, over a period of
time the website will gather consumer feedback on the overall service from providers
and rank them accordingly. RateGain already offers the travel and hospitalitg industry
four business to business products including its SearchView technology, enabling
companies to track their position online compared with competitors and NetReport
price comparison tool, already used by On Holiday Group across its retail sites.