Premier Travel Inn has won the ‘Best Consumer Website’ trophy at the recent British Interactive Media Associations Awards (BIMA).

The hotel chain beat off stiff competition from companies including Webstore, Audioville and rival hotel chain, Travelodge, to clinch the prestigious title.

The category, judged by a number of leading industry figures, recognised the website that best understood, and met, the needs of the consumers that it aimed to attract and cater for.

Judges were impressed by the simple and clean design of the Premier Travel Inn website, which also reflected the strong visual style of the brand.

Judges described the site as ‘welcoming, confident, clean and effective’, adding “Good production values and standards, simple, direct and easy to use. What else would you want?”

Gerard Tempest, Premier Travel Inn’s sales and marketing director, says “We defined our customers core needs as being to find a hotel, check availability and book a room. An increasing number of bookings are done online, and the ease of finding a convenient hotel and booking it there and then makes it a very popular tool for our customers.”

“It is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved and we hope to continue to drive further improvements in our website for our guests.”

The website was launched in February 2005 to introduce the new Premier Travel Inn brand, created in July 2004 following Whitbread’s acquisition of the Premier Lodge chain. Since its launch, Premier Travel Inn have worked closely with creative design agency ‘Good Technology’ to create a simple site focusing on the core needs of the consumers using the site. The website attracts around 35,000 visitors per day.

Several tools can be found on the website homepage that meet the most important needs of visitors. These include a find the hotel search box, an express booking facility, and the option of cancelling a recent booking. The site provides useful information, such as hotel details, local attractions, maps and transport links, and as the website’s booking engine is integrated with the company’s systems, availability checks are always real time.

This award heralds a successful year for Premier Travel Inn, which was recently nominated in the ‘Business of the Year’ category at the National Business Awards.
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