Intercontinental unveils new e-commerce services

March 17, 2004 |

Intercontinental Hotels has launched its fully integrated Holiday Inn Chinese language website which offers real time content and booking facilities in Simplified Chinese.

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has unveiled innovative new e-commerce services to enhance the online reservation experience. The Group has launched its fully integrated Holiday Inn Chinese language website [url=http://www.holidayinn.com.cn]http://www.holidayinn.com.cn,[/url] which offers real time content and booking facilities in Simplified Chinese. In addition, the Group has also simultaneously launched guaranteed reservations on the website even if the customer does not use a credit card.

Richard Hartman, Managing Director of InterContinental Hotels Group for Europe, Middle East & Africa said; “This innovative e-commerce initiative continues to place us as a leader in the hotel industry. It will be welcomed by our customers in China and around the world who can now make reservations for our hotels across the globe, without a credit card and in simplified Chinese too. This initiative sets new industry benchmarks for online reservations.

“Our experience tells us that customers everywhere are concerned about four things - convenience, reliability, security, and privacy of online transactions. Only IHG has delivered a direct Internet solution to address these needs through the convenience of reservations in Chinese, guaranteed reservations, and independently certified security and privacy, once again demonstrating our commitment to our customers around the world.”

The new Holiday Inn Chinese website caters to the needs of Chinese travellers worldwide. Chinese customers can now make online reservations with the added ease and convenience of this new Chinese language website. In addition, customers will not be required to use a credit card in order to secure a guaranteed room reservation. The InterContinental Hotels Group is the only global hotel company to recognise the importance of these key benefits to their Chinese customer base.

The new Holiday Inn Chinese website was developed over a period of 24 months following detailed research into customer requirements and preferences. The website enables customers to search for hotels, select arrival and departure dates and confirm their stays online. Changes to reservations details can also be made online. Bookings can be confirmed either with a credit card or through offline payment, by cash, money order or cheque. But rooms are also guaranteed until 4pm on the day of arrival without prior deposit.

Customers who book online through any of the Group’s websites can also rest assured that they will receive the best available rate with the IHG Lowest Rate Guarantee promise. If customers find hotels cheaper on any other website, the price will not only be matched, but the customer will also receive a 10% reduction on that rate.

Each day, over US$3.5 million in reservations is booked via direct Internet sites of the InterContinental Hotels Group, which has a long track record of world’s firsts. The Group was the first hotel chain to accept Internet bookings and also also the first in the industry to enable customers to review, cancel or modify reservations made via any channel on the companies’ direct Internet websites.