Pages 1 | 2 | 3          Summer 2003          Strategic Hotel Capital Endorses TravelCLICK Products Richard W. Gray, chairman and co-CEO of TravelCLICK, announced that Strategic Hotel Capital (SHCI), a multi-billion dollar private hotel investment company, has endorsed TravelCLICK's electronic marketing products and competitive benchmarking reports for all of its 23 owned hotel properties. SHCI has identified TravelCLICK's tools as key resources for supporting critical asset management responsibilities. "Strategic Hotel Capital's mission is to create value through research-based, value-added, intensive asset management support," said Laurence Geller, chief executive officer of Strategic Hotel Capital. "Our strong asset management team will work collaboratively with our operators in using TravelCLICK's tools to significantly increase the value of our hotel assets." Strategic Hotel Capital currently owns 23 luxury and upscale hotels and resorts in the U.S., North America and Europe. The company acquires and aggressively asset manages larger hotels, properties with 200-plus rooms, in markets with unique, hard-to-duplicate locations. Caesar Park Buenos Aires Thrives Despite Argentina's Economic Instability In 2002, the Caesar Park Buenos Aires found itself fighting for business in the unstable Argentinian business environment. The country's president had resigned and the banking system had collapsed. "Corporate accounts were reducing their business quickly, and existing accounts became very price sensitive in a market that had rates comparable to New York City and some of the bigger European cities," explained Jorgelina Masso, sales manager. But Caesar Park, a five-star luxury boutique hotel strategically located in the Recoleta District, found a silver lining with TravelCLICK. Caesar Park implemented aggressive travel agent and group media campaigns. The hotel used Hotelligence and Phaser reports to help identify high-potential accounts and markets and to help with yield management and price strategy decisions. Caesar Park saw its investment pay off throughout the year. In January, 2002, the hotel's GDS contribution was just barely above its fair share of the market. After implementing regular TravelCLICK media campaigns on a monthly basis, the hotel analyzed its performance again. In comparing the hotel's performance in the first quarter of 2003 to the same period in 2002, room nights grew 28% and revenue market penetration improved by 23 percentage points. "The strong guidance and detailed information from our local TravelCLICK consultant, combined with the different advertising possibilities on the GDS, gave us the possibility to be in front of potential clients with very aggressive rates while still maintaining control of our inventory," Masso says. Major Hotel Chains Grew Internet Reservations by 75% in 2002 TravelCLICK Reports eTRAK Results from 33 Leading Brands TravelCLICK's 2002 eTRAK report demonstrates that total Internet reservations received at the central reservation offices (CRO) for the major chains grew 75% in 2002 over 2001. The company cited that the increase was driven primarily by the rise in activity on the brands' Web sites. eTRAK is a quarterly benchmarking report that allows hotel chains to track booking performance on the Internet and GDS. Despite the impressive growth of the Internet, eTRAK shows that over twice as many reservations come through GDS channels than via Internet sites. "Electronic channels are the primary source of central reservations office bookings," said Bruce W. Mainzer, senior vice president of marketing for TravelCLICK. "While the Internet channel contribution is growing, hotels still need to focus on the GDS to ensure that they are maximizing ADR and occupancy." The 33 major chains and brands participating in this survey reported that 13% of their total CRO reservations were received from their brand Web site in 2002 (i.e. marriott.com, hilton.com, etc.), while six percent were sourced from third-party Internet sites. Less than half, or 42%, of reservations were made via phone to the CROs. Reservation Sources for Major Hotel Brands - 2002 *Results from this study can differ with overall hospitality industry performance on the Internet and GDS because eTRAK reflects only the CRO performance of the 33 brands which participated in the 2002 eTRAK report. The top ten third-party Web sites for hotel bookings to brand CROs were, in order: Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz (which moved from #7 to #4 since the 2001 eTRAK report), Lodging.com, TravelNow, Hotwire, WorldRes, TravelHero and USA Hotelguide. For more information, contact Dan Snepp at dsnepp@travelclick.net. Pages 1 | 2 | 3