Splendia Reinforces Its Development In The Americas

Splendia.com is a luxury hotel label that provides the ultimate online reservation service. After a quick development in Europe, Splendia.com reinforces its development in the Americas. Splendia.com: 3000+ hotels, 1.3M visitors/month. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) April 15, 2009 - Splendia.com: 3000+ hotels, 1.3M visitors/month and $48M in 2008

Having firmly established their presence in the international markets, Splendia.com is moving towards attaining status as the ultimate worldwide online reservation service for luxury and character hotels. Founded in 2004, Splendia.com has experienced extremely rapid growth to reach a turnover of $48M in 2008.

[In our first four years, we ve been focused on European markets, probably too focused. In 2008, 70% of our hotel portfolio and 80% of our customers were based in Europe. In 2009, it is time for Splendia to go global.] affirms Elie de Coignac, CEO of Splendia.com

Following success in Europe, Co-founder of Splendia.com moves to Miami to target the Americas

[Until now our presence in the Americas was focused on hotel acquisition with our priority being on building our hotel portfolio in this continent. Thanks to our team in Miami, today we offer our customers more than 650 hotels in the Americas and a large number of new hotels will be added to our selection this month through a new Pegasus connection. With our local hotel partners in place, it is now time for us to focus on our American customers.] explains Benoit Durand, Co-founder of Splendia.com and recently appointed Director in charge of the company s development in the Americas.

And it s not the current conjuncture which will change their plans… they see the current economic situation as an opportunity for them:

[The hotel industry has definitely been impacted these past months and some hotels or chains that were reluctant to partner with us in the past are now seeing the advantages of working with an online luxury brand, and so they are now changing their position. It s a really interesting and exciting time to be developing our presence in the US. Every day we receive a large number of requests from potential hotel partners… so we can be even more demanding than before in our selection criteria and quality level agreement. I am confident that we will have more than 1000 hotels in the Americas before the end of 2009] confirms Benoit Durand.

Aggressive online marketing combined with outstanding quality and service

In terms of Marketing, Splendia.com plans to replicate the model that led to their success in Europe: An aggressive online marketing strategy combined with a belief in outstanding quality and service that extends to every aspect of the company.

[Our main concern is customer satisfaction. This is why we recently invested heavily in setting up our own in-house Customer Service in Miami. The team (speaking English, Spanish and Portuguese) receives the majority of the calls from our customers in the Americas and thanks to our Customer Service Centers in Barcelona and Hong Kong, we are now able to answer our customers queries around the clock, 24/7] says Elie de Coignac.

With their hotel portfolio and Customer Service Centers now in place, their next objective is to successfully adapt their existing model to this new market. It is a big challenge but one that they are ready to take on.

Founded in 2004, Splendia.com is a luxury hotel label that provides the ultimate online reservation service dedicated to discerning leisure and business travellers. With the American head office in Miami and branch offices in Barcelona and Hong Kong, Splendia.com represents more than 3,000 hand-selected luxury and character hotels throughout the world.

Contact: Benoit DURAND - benoit ( @ ) splendia dot com - Tel: +1 (305) 379 3903 -

www.splendia.com

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