Breaking Travel News

Prime Signs Agreement With Hotels.com and Expedia.com

  Prime Hospitality Corp. , Expedia.com(R) and Hotels.com announced today
that they have signed an agreement to provide customers with access to
thousands of Prime Hospitality Corp. hotel rooms through the Expedia.com
and Hotels.com Web sites. Under the new agreement, both the Expedia.com
and Hotels.com websites will present prices to customers which are equal
to the rates sold through Prime’s own branded websites.
The agreement covers Prime Hospitality’s rooms at all its AmeriSuites,
Prime Hotels & Resorts, and Wellesley Inns & Suites hotels—260
properties throughout North America. In turn, the agreement gives Prime
the opportunity to market to the nearly 20 million customers looking for
hotel rooms on Expedia.com and Hotels.com each month.

The agreement also calls for the joint development of a direct connection
with Expedia.com and Hotels.com into Prime’s Central Reservation System,
fully automating the reservation process and making it extremely accurate
and more cost effective for all properties.

“We are very pleased with our renewed relationship with Expedia.com and
Hotels.com,” said DJ Vallauri, Vice President of E-Commerce for Prime.
“This is a great deal for all parties and especially for consumers who
prefer to book through the Expedia.com and/or Hotels.com websites. In
addition the new agreement gives each property manager the flexibility to
manage inventory and rates as best suits their sales strategies.”

“This agreement offers a great benefit to consumers, who are our mutual
customers at Expedia(R), Hotels.com and Prime Hospitality,” said Lloyd
Frink, senior vice president of lodging at IAC Travel. “Being able to
continue to offer these well-known, quality brands further extends our
ability to meet the needs of travelers. We’re proud to have Prime as a
hotelier so we can grow our businesses together.”

Prime Hospitality Corp., one of the nation’s premier lodging companies,
owns, manages, develops and franchises more than 260 hotels throughout
North America. The Company owns and operates three proprietary brands,
AmeriSuites(R) (all-suites), Prime Hotels & Resorts(SM) (full-service) and
Wellesley Inns & Suites(R) (limited service). Also within Prime’s
portfolio are owned and/or managed hotels operated under franchise
agreements with national hotel chains including Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton
and Holiday Inn. Prime can be accessed over the Internet at
http://www.primehospitality.com/.

ADVERTISEMENT

Expedia, Inc. is the world’s leading online travel service and the fourth
largest travel agency in the U.S. Expedia’s award-winning Expert Searching
and Pricing (ESP) technology delivers the most comprehensive flight
options available online. ESP also allows customers to dynamically build
complete trips that combine flights, Expedia(R) Special Rate hotels and
other lodging, ground transportation, and destination activities. Expedia
operates Classic Custom Vacations(R), a leading distributor of premiere
vacation packages to destinations such as Hawaii, Mexico, Europe and the
Caribbean; and Expedia(R) Corporate Travel, a full-service corporate
travel agency. Expedia, Inc.‘s wholly owned subsidiary, Travelscape, Inc.,
operates WWTE(TM), bringing complementary cross-sell and dynamic packaging
booking functionality to third parties on a private-label basis. Expedia
can be found on the Web at http://www.expedia.com/. Expedia is a
wholly-owned subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp . CST: 2029030-40
——-