HotelRooms.com

announced today the winner of the 2003 HotelRooms.com Hotel
Website Design Award - Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
The award recognizes outstanding website design based on factors which
include a combination of design, technology, ease-of-use and an overall
positive user experience.

“The Fairmont.com website should serve as a standard for hotels which want
to make a true impression with their web presence,” said HotelRooms.com
CEO Avi Goldstein.

“It is a standard practice for brand websites to employ a template-driven,
cookie cutter approach to presenting their database of properties,” said
Karmelo Dominguez, Vice President of Sales. “In Fairmont’s case, the
stunning, visually-driven approach lends itself to creating a truly
distinct ‘look and feel’ for each individual property, while maintaining a
uniform design. From the snow-frosted lakeside thrill of The Fairmont
Chateau Lake Louise to the ‘magical oasis’ of The Fairmont Royal Pavilion
in Barbados, each property truly immerses the viewer into its location and
setting.”

“Out of all of the segments in the travel industry, no other area depends
on aesthetic or visual presentation as much as hotels,” added Mr.
Dominguez. “Fairmont.com uses stunning panoramic shots which accentuate
each location’s unique appeal masterfully, without placing a high demand
on bandwidth or requiring extraneous browser plug-ins.”

“We are very pleased to receive this website award from our online
distribution partners, HotelRooms.com. HotelRooms.com provides prospective
customers direct access to Fairmont.com, where our new online capabilities
can support a much more customized and enhanced online experience. This
will lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing
consumers increased functionality and convenience, exclusive package
offers, high quality content, activity booking capabilities, travel tools
and other features unique to Fairmont.com,” said Jens Thraenhart, Director
of Internet Strategy Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
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