Expedia Offers Hoteliers Tips on Tapping Into the Expansive Growth of International Travelers to the U.S.; Spending in June 2011 was $1 billion Higher than Same Period One Year Ago / September 2011

Bellevue, WASH. - - (September 27, 2011) - - With travel spend to the U.S. from international visitors on the rise, Expedia, Inc., the world’s largest online travel marketplace with over 100 Expedia® and Hotels.com® branded sites worldwide, released data today showing that international inbound bookings from specific super regions to key U.S. destination cities are up significantly over last year.

International visitors spent nearly $12.5 billion traveling to the U.S. and buying tourism-related activities while here during the month of June alone. This is a $1 billion increase over June 2010 and marks the 18th straight month of growth in U.S. travel and tourism exports, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Expedia took a closer look at the trend and its impact on hotels in key markets, and found:

Bookings on Expedia and Hotels.com sites in Latin America are up 75 percent to Miami, 81 percent to New York and 56 percent to Orlando.
Bookings from the company’s websites in Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) region to Los Angeles and Miami are growing faster than the market overall.
Bookings from Asia-Pacific to Honolulu are up 32 percent.

Many hotels are wondering how to reach these inbound international visitors. Here are some suggestions:

1. Build your traffic around holidays in the targeted countries. Europeans tend to take extended vacations in the summer months. Beach resorts and other vacation destinations can target European demand specifically for July and August.

2. Offer room plus food and beverage value adds. Breakfast or another F&B offer will assist in conversion on international points of sale versus a hotel with a room-only offer. One Expedia hotel partner in Houston recently secured 1,300 room nights 45 days in advance by including breakfast in its offering to international travelers.

3. Make sure your online content speaks to the targeted audience. If you have staff that speaks the language, be sure to make note.

4. Know your customer. Different guests have different booking patterns. OTA market managers have tremendous data resources to help predict demand and understand the best sources of advance bookings. For example, guests traveling from the Asia-Pacific region appreciate a package deal, as evidenced by the more than 500 percent increase year over year in bookings to Hawaii.

5. Magnify the billboard effect with media campaigns in key international markets.

To read more about the success of Expedia hotel partners in targeting international travelers, visit http://press.expediainc.com/index.php?s=64

Expedia is a trademark or registered trademark of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST: 2029030-50