ChooseToTravel.com goes global.

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 17 July, 2010
ChooseToTravel.com now provides a global hotel booking engine with over 60,000 hotels.

Over the last few months we have been working on amalgamating our properties from our various Choose branded sites into ChooseToTravel.com. Today I'm pleased to announce go live! This has also been extended to our Travel Guides sections.

As hotels sign up on the various Choose branded sites and as travel guides get added, we now push these onto ChooseToTravel.com extending both exposure and reach.

Essentially we are trying to address both repeat customers (who know and trust our brand) and those whom are not so sure where they wish to travel. Both now have a single entry point and can research global hotel rates and destination info directly from ChooseToTravel.com.

Assuming they 'Choose' as destination they can also visit the appropriate Choose branded site for detailed info about their destination.

Working hard behind the scenes.

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 27 August, 2009

Over the course of the last few months we've been working hard in the background to enhance your overall experience whilst browsing our site. Searching for a hotel can be over-whelming at times, we believe these new features will assist you whilst choosing and booking your hotel.

 

 

Recomendations
Last month, we released our recomendation/profiling framework. Put simply, this framework allows you to see what other customers are searching for and what hotels they are looking and booking. There are now two new 'pods' to look out for...

• What other customers are viewing...
  Located on the hotels homepage, this displays the four most frequently viewed hotels.
   
• Customers who viewed this item also viewed...
  Located on the hotel information pages, this displays four hotels that other customers have viewed similar to your recent search history.

Hotel Reviews (By our customers)
Nice images and - if available - video walk-throughs help when choosing a hotel, however these are almost always provided by the hotel. Over the last year or so we've been collecting reviews from real customers and are pleased to now include these reviews along side the hotel information. These reviews are from genuine customers, catagorised by type of traveler and are not vetted.  These reviews allow you to get advice from real travelers.

Near by Images
So many hotels focus on providing you with images of the hotel and its facilities that they forget to include images of the area. In collaboration with Panaromia (by Google) we now show area photos along side the hotel information to give you a 'feel' for the area.

We hope that these improvements will help you find the information you need to choose the right hotel for you more easily.

Chris

P.S. Last week, we also released some more destinations...

More destinations, more choice...

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 8 June, 2009

Eastern Europe is steadily becoming a popular choice among European travellers. With an abundance of architecture and unspoilt country sides these destinations are a perfect choice for the more adventurous traveller.

ChooseToTravel.com has recently launched Slovenia, Romania and Latvia.  Each site contains essential Travel Guides and a vast array of hotels to choose from.

Remember - Take advantage of our price guarantee and our Book now - pay at the hotel policy!

Staycastions

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 8 June, 2009

According to Wikipedia a staycation is defined as "A staycation (or stay-cation, or stacation) is a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions"  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staycation.

With the current economic crisis still in swing, we decided to launch a number of sites dedicated to UK travel.  You may not choose to stay at home but prefer to take a break locally; allowing you to 'switch off' and take the family away, whilst not incurring the full costs of a holiday overseas.  Ever been to Bristol or Brighton?  Fantastic places!

So if you're considering a holiday in England (locally or from abroad), then check out our new sites and take advantage of our price guarantee and our Book now - pay at the hotel policy.

 

More destinations...

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 7 April, 2009

Yesterday we added more destinations for you to choose from:

Well done everyone,
Chris

KISS -- Keep it Simple Stupid

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 1 April, 2009

This morning we went live with a new look and feel!  We've been meaning to do this for a while and finally we were able to allocate some time to it.

The new look takes it back to basics and as the title of the post states "keeps it simple". 

We hope you like it; all feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks to all involved,
Chris

 

More destinations...

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 9 March, 2009

Last week we launched ChooseQatar.com, ChooseBahrain.com and ChooseBeirut.com.  Thanks to all involved.

More soon!

Latest news, in real time.

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 16 February, 2009

We are well into the Web 2.0 era and as a company, we strive to keep ourselves and our websites up to date with the latest trends. We launched the NewsFeed last Friday and hope to continually improve it to bring you updates in real time, as they happen.

We believe it is important for our customers to know that we are a very active company and are constantly searching for ways to make online travel easier for you.

As always, should you have any suggestions, do not hesistate to contact us.

Infrastructure upgrade, and Special offers!

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 8 September, 2008

It was bound to happen - Our traffic has been growing at a steady rate and sooner or later we were going to have to move our websites to a bigger, more powerful Infrastructure.

This upgrade happened last night and we used it as an opportunity to also launch two exciting new features: Special Offers and Allocation. We have worked on them for quite a while and we're all very happy to finally see them on the live website.

 

As always, feel free to use our feedback form if you have any suggestions.

Thank you,
Marc

ChooseIbiza.com & ChooseCroatia.com Live!

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 21 July, 2008

ChooseToTravel.com group adds ChooseIbiza.com and ChooseCroatia.com to it's portfolio!  This morning at around 04.00am both sites were successfully launched on the web.

Still in beta and still signing up hotels but at least we've started.  Watch this space...

The re/launch...

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 20 June, 2008

This morning at around 04.00am ChooseDubai.com, ChooseSouthAfrica.com, ChooseMorocco.com, ChooseTunisia.com, ChooseCorsica.com and ChooseTurkey.com went live/got a face lift.

Over the course of the last six months we (mainly IT but extends to others) have been working extremely hard on this new release and I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved.

I believe this is a huge step forward for the ChooseToTravel.com group and I’m excited about the future. Anyone thinking of visiting the above countries...I challenge you to find better prices for our hotels!

Well done team!

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 5 June, 2008

It's finally complete! This morning at 4AM we launched a brand new system we have been working on for the past 6 months. Ironically, most users will not notice any changes on the front end of the website (for now), but I can assure you that both the ChooseToTravel.com staff as well as our suppliers shall benefit from this new system for years to come. After analysing our code around six months ago, I decided a full redesign of our system was needed.

When a website starts out, you cannot think too far ahead. But there's a certain time when the company suddenly expands and you are faced with limitations and processes which no longer work or need updating.

Six months later, after days and nights of coding and bug testing, we now have a system which will make life easier for us, for the reservations team, and most importantly, for our suppliers! Additionally, new releases will take much less time to be implemented so our IT team can really focus on adding neat new features!

Well done team!

RateTiger added to list of Integrators

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 28 March, 2008

Great news for hotels and great news for us -- we are now officially supported by RateTiger.  Thanks to everyone involved in this project.

About RateTiger

RateTiger, by eRevMax, is a leader in Online Distribution Management tools, pioneering new technologies for the hospitality industry.

The sophisticated product portfolio empowers hoteliers, enabling them to compare rates with competitors on a real-time basis and update a wide variety of distribution channels and travel portals simply and efficiently.

Read more about RateTiger

ChooseItaly.com live!

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 17 December, 2007

A new addition to the ChooseToTravel.com network is born!  Last night at around 10.00pm ChooseItaly.com went live on the web.

Still in beta and still signing up hotels but at least we've started.  We have BIG plans for this domain!

 

Re-Launch successful

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 17 December, 2007

Over the last five months the whole of Inspire has been gearing up to a new release of our websites.

As we have grown we have come to understand our customer more and are better armed to provide you with what you need (not what we thought you needed).  We hope this release emcompases these findings.  Included in this release is...

1. A new Look and Feel;
2. Advanced searching functionality;
3. More hotels; and
4. Generally putting the information where you want it

I hope you enjoy and welcome feedback at anytime.  Just fill in our feedback form.

Thanks again,
Chris

IT gets two new recruits

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 18 July, 2007

Lincoln Grixti and Mark Camilleri have joined the ChooseToTravel.com IT team. I myself am super excited -- finally I get some help! 

Both Mark (aka Delf) and Linc (aka Linky) will start immediatley re-developing the whole of the ChooseToTravel.com application.

We have lots of plans for the ChooseToTravel.com group and their skills will only enhance the outcome (I hope anyway).

Welcome aboard guys, dont forget when the going gets tough the tough get going!

ChooseDubai.com live!

Chris Knights (Co-Founder) | 1 February, 2006

On the back of our successfull launch of ChooseMalta.com, last night at around 10.00pm ChooseDubai.com went live on the web.

This was a great milestone for us as our efforts and success with ChooseMalta.com have paid off and enabled us to launch ChooseDubai.com.

Over the next couple of months we intend to launch more of the ChooseToTravel.com network so watch this space!