In a move to consolidate the most
rapidly growing sector of the hospitality industry, IVONDI announced today
that it has acquired all assets of USBestHotels.com. The transaction
includes both a cash and stock component.Created in 2001, USBestHotels.com was a first-mover in the ‘hotel-
friendly’ direct-to-consumer eMarketing segment. Today, USBestHotels
brings over 7000 hotels.

“The satisfaction and continued patronage of our hotel clients more than
validates the model,” explains John Collins, Founder and CEO of
USBestHotels, who stays on to lead US operations. “Hotels want to deal
directly with their clients, both online and off. They want control over
inventory and price in real-time, and they are growing increasingly
uncomfortable about leaving their image and margin to be decided by third
parties.” Collins continues, “USBestHotels had been looking for the right
partner to help take it to the next level and IVONDI, with its
media-buying savvy and overseas operations, offers more than we had
imagined.”

New to the market in 2003, IVONDI signed a record number of hotels and
hotel chain clients in both North America and Europe thanks to its unique,
cross-promotional approach.

“We want to offer hotels the right mix of
online, offline, and direct marketing exposure to drive traffic and
transactions to the hotel website,” explains Steeve Croteau, Founder and
President of IVONDI. “The hotels that have been quick to embrace IVONDI
realize that current commission-levels paid to resellers are unsustainable
in terms of forecast online growth.” CSFirstBoston predicts that online
sales will grow from 10% at present to account for 26% of total sales by
2006.
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