5th Expedia Malta Supplier Summit

TWO AWARDS FOR LE MERIDIEN ST JULIANS HOTEL & SPA from expedia.com

ST JULIANS, MALTA - October 29, 2009 - No fewer than 84 local hotels were invited to the 5th Expedia Malta Supplier Summit, held at Le Méridien St Julians Hotel & Spa on 19 October. The summit was addressed Diego J. Lofeudo, director of Market Management, Eastern Mediterranean and Africa; and Zigor Munoz, Market Revenue Manager for Malta, Israel & Cyprus.

Malta is always used as a case study by Expedia since it illustrates what a small market can do to attract traffic through the Expedia site. Hotel bookings in the first nine months of 2009 reached nearly the same level of 2008 which is excellent news per se compared to the strong decrease of arrivals in destinations such as Cyprus.

Moreover Maltese hoteliers benefited from an 8% increase in number of room nights compared to 2008, showing that booking over the Internet works, in particular through Expedia.

The hoteliers were informed that 70 per cent of room nights came from promotions, not just from cheap rates. They were advised to use bed stock that they were not going to sell in their promotions.

Maltese hotels were well represented on Expedia, which is present in 60 countries, but it was important to "convert lookers to bookers" by justifying rates with content and photos. Some hotels had not yet uploaded their 2010 rates.

After outlining Expedia's major position as a travel website, and giving further advice on how best to market their hotels on the site, Mr Munoz went on to give the awards for this year.

Le Méridien St Julians received awards for Best Customer Selection and a Special Recognition Award. Other awards went to Radisson Hotels Malta, the Grand Hotel Excelsior and Corinthia San Gorg.

Mr Munoz praised Le Méridien St Julians for its active marketing of the property, which enabled it to sell all room allocations that were made available.

Back to Hotel Overview