Bed booking via SMS a NZ first - Ezibed.com

Bed booking via SMS a NZ first - Ezibed.com

Kiwi accommodation website Ezibed.com first to offer booking confirmation via SMS.

Release: 12 June 2008

Hawkes Bay - 12 June 2008 New Zealand accommodation specialist Ezibed.com (www.ezibed.com) this week launched a new service that allows customers to receive their booking confirmation via text message, sent instantly to their phone. This is a New Zealand first for an online accommodation booking website.

With an ever increasing number of New Zealanders now booking their accommodation online, Ezibed.com has launched this free service to assist travelers who either cannot print their booking confirmations due to already travelling or for same day bookings. Customers also receive instant e-mail notification of their booking.

Ezibed.com solely focuses on accommodation with accommodation providers presenting their best deals to customers over a 28 day window. Properties for each region are displayed on one screen allowing customers to easily view accommodation and compare the consolidated properties by rate, location or use the advanced search options to narrow their search. Customers can book securely with instant confirmation.

Ezibed.com was founded in late 2003 and has become a leading online accommodation booking website within New Zealand, recently expanding into Australia, Pacific Islands, USA and Canada. The company plans to extend into popular Asian regions before the end of 2008.

The addition of SMS booking confirmations to the accommodation website has been in development for a few months, according to Gareth Pearce, Director of Ezibed.com.

"We are all about offering a quality service to our customers. Our website speed is the fastest in the market, and now providing booking confirmations via SMS is an innovative new service which continues to keep us ahead of our competitors."

"No company in New Zealand offers accommodation booking notifications via SMS", says Pearce.

"Within New Zealand, airlines allow you to receive notification of flight schedule changes, and there are only a couple of accommodation websites overseas offering SMS notifications of booking changes, so we are at the forefront of offering this type of service internationally."

Pearce has recently returned from attending travel tradeshows in Vancouver for Canada and Las Vegas for the USA where the response for SMS booking notifications was greeted with enthusiasm.

"North American hotel chains & independents like working with innovative & exciting companies", says Pearce.

"When competing in North America, we are up against heavyweights such as Expedia & Travelocity. These companies have billion dollar marketing budgets so we have to be innovative about how we promote our product offering. To build up a critical mass of accommodation providers to give our customers choice, we need to be doing things differently. We've done it here in New Zealand with success, so now it's just about exporting our model overseas."

ENDS

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