Travelodge.co.uk
was re-built to make booking
easier and improve the customer`s experience of the brand online - and
with all its launch targets exceeded, the project has definitely been a
success. The website is projected to deliver å£(pounds sterling)40m in
bookings this year, and numbers continue to grow.

18 months ago Travelodge set e-business objectives to steadily increase
online room booking from 8% to 15% of total reservations over one year,
and that by the end of 2005 30% of all bookings would be made via the
web. To achieve this, Travelodge realised that the web site needed to be
more `user-friendly` and easier to navigate. They engaged e-business
specialists Sense Internet to rebuild the website in line with their
targets.

Sense helped Travelodge to introduce a host of new features that started
showing results straight away; they enhanced the core Travelodge
offering with new features, including:

-    a streamlined booking process,
-    foreign language facilities,
-    emailing campaign,
-    AA route planner integration.

The success of the new features became apparent as bookings started to
soar, and the success was reinforced in October 2002 when the web site
was awarded two highly respected industry awards.

In June 2003 Travelodge can reveal that their objectives have not only
been met, but exceeded, and that website bookings turnover has grown
from an estimated £20m to £40m in the first year. “Recent trends show
that we are on course to beat our target of 30% of all bookings being
made via the web by 2005”, confirmed Peter Halsey, Travelodge marketing
director. “Hitting the £40m mark so quickly is a huge stride for us and
online business generally, as it shows that e-commerce is very much
alive and probably has much more potential in the pipeline for us,” he
says.

“We have witnessed phenomenal growth in the number of online bookings,
which are currently running at approximately 10,000 per week, and the
feedback from our consumers tells us that they like the speed and ease
of the online booking system” adds Halsey.

Aidan Cook, managing director of Sense Internet - which specialises in
e-business communications - comments: “We are proud of the website we
delivered last year, and pleased with the excellent working relationship
our team have with Travelodge - we`ve made a great start, and there`s
plenty more to do. The website will continue to develop, because there
are still a lot more things we think we can give to the customer.

 
“We know from our own client base that e-business is making a return on
investment and delivers real hard business, but growth of almost 100% in
a year is exceptionally good at a time when the number of new internet
users in the UK has slowed,” he added.

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