HONG KONG, January 16 - Priceline, feted as the Best Bargain Booker for travel on the Internet, today announced a major expansion designed to revolutionise the breadth of its travel-product choices in Asia.
Starting this month, Hutchison-Priceline will introduce a new range of discounted, published-price travel products alongside its innovative Name Your Own Price model.
Hutchison-Priceline announced the first of its planned retail products, car rentals, via a special partnership with Hertz Rent A Car last month. This month one of the world's leading hotel reservation providers, octopustravel.com Limited, also will join the fold. Further travel-related products and services will be added during 2003, the company said.
The addition of these retail products means Hutchison-Priceline customers will be presented with two options that deliver significant travel discounts. They can get the greatest savings via the Name Your Own Price model, rated by Yahoo! Internet Life magazine as the Best Bargain Booker on the Web. Or they can take advantage of even more choices through the retail options chosen for budget-sensitive deals.
"This is a milestone development for HutchisonPriceline," said company CEO Alfredo Gangotena. "Our customers love the feeling of being in control when they use the Name Your Own price model - and they know there's no better deal around than our savings of up to 20%-30% off typical market prices. Now we've decided to complement that service by adding retail products that are also excellent bargains."
The advantage of the Name Your Own Price model is that in less-busy travel periods throughout the year, customers can bargain hard and get exceptional savings for the unsold seats and rooms provided by Hutchison-Priceline's 34 airline and 9,000 hotel partners around the world, Mr Gangotena said.
"In peak holiday periods, when prices are higher and availability limited, customers can still name their own price through Priceline," he added. "Yet if there are no seats or rooms available for specific dates or itineraries, our customers can now go straight to our retail options and be confident of getting the best market prices available."
Mr Gangotena said customers will discover multiple advantages in the expanded travel-buying options. For example, travellers will soon be able to buy sightseeing tours around the world via a powerful search engine that delivers the best available retail discounts. Or if there are no unsold hotel rooms available on specific days through the Name Your Own Price booking engine, customers can go directly to the retail option and choose specific brands, locations and prices. They can also find hotel descriptions and independent ratings, maps, currency converters and weather forecasts.
Visitors to priceline.com.hk and priceline.com.sg in coming weeks will see an innovative new website homepage that encompasses the Priceline booking engine plus the retail options. All of the new products will incorporate the Priceline ease and convenience of 24-hour bookings, seven days a week.
A recap of Hutchison-Priceline's key 2002 developments follows.
NOTE TO MEDIA
For a sneak preview of Priceline's new website, including retail products, please contact:
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide/Hong Kong
Susanna Muk/May Sze
Tel: +852-2884-8584/ 2884-8254
Fax: +852-2560-9971
E-Mail: susanna.muk@ogilvy.com / may.sze@ogilvy.com
or
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd.
Penny Crisp
Tel: +852-3192-0824
Fax: +852-3192-0777
E-Mail: penny.crisp@hpcln.com
About Hutchison-Priceline
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd was formed with investments from Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (65%) in Hong Kong and priceline.com Inc (35%) in the United States. Hutchison brings to the alliance its unparalleled brand, huge customer pool, vast management experience and deep knowledge of Asia. Priceline.com also boasts an extremely strong brand. It adds unique technology to the mix, plus outstanding e-commerce experience.
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd operates a unique Name Your Own PriceTM Internet travel service for airline tickets and hotel rooms. It offers great savings for flexible travellers. For airline tickets customers choose their destination, dates of travel and desired price, then agree to fly on a major airline at the times when the airline has empty seats. For hotel rooms customers specify their dates, the star rating, the area of a city and, of course, the price. Priceline then picks an international-brand or boutique hotel.
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd works with one of the travel industry's largest collections of travel suppliers. These include 34 Asian and international airlines and more than 9,000 hotel properties around the world.