Best Western Australia is launching its new look website -
www.bestwestern.com.au which is aiming to be easier, faster and offer more features
to both consumers and individual hotels.“The Internet is the largest and fastest growing distribution channel
for our market. In May 2006 our online bookings showed a 41% growth
compared to 2005,” says General Manager Marketing, Kimi Anderson. “As
part of a new online strategy for this year our website was re-designed
and users can now more easily navigate around the site and quickly make
bookings with 50% less clicks required than before.”

“We’ve also included a new photo gallery and revamped the ‘online guided
tour’, as visual factors are important to consumers when selecting
accommodation on the web.”

Each of Best Western’s 220 hotels across Australia have their own
individual property website within the main site and the new website
gives each hotel greater flexibility to expand their information and
images and receive better reporting on the performance of their
‘microsite’.

Kimi added “We’ve also retained the features that have proven to be
popular with consumers in the past such as Hot Deals, the Discovery
Series and the Great Australian Drives, and consumers are now able to
book complete packages, such as a wine or golf package on our website.”

Also coming soon are online street level maps that will pinpoint the
exact location of Best Western hotels to consumers, providing them with
specific diving directions and even regional weather information.

The new look is inline with new Best Western global website designs to
ensure the World’s Largest Hotel Chain maintains a strong and consistent
brand presence online, just as it does elsewhere.

The new website is just the first stage of a new online marketing
strategy for Best Western Australia which also included the appointment
of Clear Blue Day as their online agency. Commenting on the new website
Clear Blue Day said “This demonstrates Best Western’s commitment to
using the web as an extremely targeted communications tool. Our aim now
is to further increase dialogue with Best Western customers by bringing
the benefits of staying at a Best Western hotel to them in a more
targeted, content specific way.”
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