Best Customer Selection Award to Le Meridien Malta

Online, November 9, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Malta is always used as a case study by Expedia since it illustrates what a small market can do to attract traffic through the Expedia site. Hotel bookings in the first nine months of 2009 reached nearly the same level as 2008, which is excellent news per se compared to the considerable fall in the number of arrivals at destinations such as Cyprus.

Moreover, Maltese hoteliers benefited from an eight per cent increase in the number of room nights compared to 2008, showing that booking over the Internet - in particular through Expedia - works. The hoteliers were informed that 70 per cent of room nights came from promotions, not just from cheap rates, and were advised to use bed stock that they were not going to sell in their promotions.

Maltese hotels are well represented on Expedia, which is present in 60 countries, but it was important to "convert lookers to bookers" by justifying rates with content and photographs. Some hotels had not yet uploaded their rates for 2010.

After outlining Expedia's major position as a travel website, and giving further advice on how best to market their hotels on the site, Mr Munoz went on to present the awards for this year. Le Meridien St Julians received an Award for "Best Customer Selection" and a "Special Recognition" Award. Other awards went to Radisson Hotels Malta, the Grand Hotel Excelsior and Corinthia San Gorg. Mr Munoz praised Le Meridien St Julians for its active marketing of the property, which enabled it to sell all room allocations that were made available to Expedia.