Expedia.com Expedia.Com Caps Award Winning Year with Top Honors Including Ziff Davis Smart Business MVP and PC Magazine Readers’ Choice
BELLEVUE, WA, Dec. 20, 2000—Expedia.com® received honors and recognition from an array of sources in the final year of the millennium, highlighting the travel site's broad appeal and superior customer experience. Business publications such as Ziff Davis Smart Business and Mobile Computing & Communications, consumer publications such as Yahoo! Internet Life and Town and Country, industry experts such as Gomez, and consumers voting for PC Magazine's Readers' Choice have all awarded Expedia.com their highest honor as the best travel site.
These awards recognized Expedia®'s industry-leading customer service and reliability along with a host of new services and features, including a new hotel and lodging section, increased flight searching capabilities, mobile and wireless services, a pioneering privacy policy and improved customer relationship management initiatives such as registration-free shopping.
“Listening carefully to the valuable input of our travel customers is what enables Expedia to provide an award-winning service,” said Richard Barton, president and CEO of Expedia, Inc. “From planning a trip to booking and beyond, we understand what travelers want and have developed the tools and services to satisfy those needs. Whether it's detailed destination information to help travelers plan a trip, a wide variety of lodging options including villas or Expedia Special Rates hotels, the most comprehensive set of airfare choices, destination services to book tours and attractions like a wine tour in Napa, or the broadest selection of cruises online—Expedia knows and delivers what travelers need.”
Recent recognition includes:
Gomez awarded Expedia with its WebStar for its Fall 2000 Internet Travel Agent Scorecard, marking the fourth quarter in a row in which Gomez recognized Expedia as the top online travel agent site: “This site continues to evolve rapidly and refine its offerings, whether by expanding the number of flights returned from a search query, integrating a search field and a link to customer service in the global navigation scheme, providing specific flight details such as mileage, segment time and total time, or thorough wireless capabilities.”
PC Magazine readers voted Expedia.com as their Readers' Choice in the Nov. 21, 2000 issue: “According to our readers, Expedia.com has got it right, receiving above-average scores in all but two major categories. In terms of overall satisfaction, overall price, and likelihood to recommend, Expedia.com edges out the popular Travelocity.com—and does a great deal better than the so-called discount sites.”¹
Mobile Computing & Communications highlighted Expedia.com as the Best Mobile Web Site of 2000 in the Jan. 2001 issue: “Plan your next business trip with the click of a mouse. No more phone calls to travel agents to book flights and hotels. Simply log onto Expedia.com and perform an Express Search with flight, hotel and car options.”
Ziff Davis Smart Business for the New Economy named Expedia.com MVP for online travel in the Jan. 2001 issue: “Expedia's flight search engine is simple and powerful, allowing you to easily query by departure time or by price. Book your tickets online, or call a travel agent 24/7 to close the deal. With Expedia To Go you can check your itinerary and flight status, or look up alternate flights, right on your wireless device.”²
Other awards that Expedia.com has received throughout the year include:
SATW, Lowell Thomas Competition—Gold Award/Best Internet Publication, Spring 2000
PC Magazine—Editors' Choice, July 2000
PC World— World Class Award and Best Travel Site, July 2000
Yahoo! Internet Life—Best Overall Travel Site, July 2000
eTravelWorld—Best Online Travel Agency, Best Site to Book a Vacation, Best Site to Book a Hotel/Lodging, September 2000
Forbes.com—Best of the Web, Fall 2000
National Geographic Traveler—Best Travel Site, November/December 2000
Travel + Leisure—One of the Best Booking Engines for Airline Tickets, November 2000
Overall, Expedia was recognized for its breadth of services with key strengths in the overall customer experience, fare searching capabilities, customer service, and mobile services.
About Expedia, Inc.
Expedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE) operates Expedia.com, a leading online Web site in the United States with localized versions for travelers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. To help customers travel right, Expedia.com provides the best combination of air, car and hotel booking, vacation package and cruise offers, destination information, and point-to-point mapping.
Expedia.com customers are supported by a credit card guarantee (U.S. site only), an industry-leading privacy policy, and live agents via e-mail and an 800-number available 24 hours a day/seven days a week. Expedia.com is also available under Travel on the MSN® network of Internet services.
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¹ Reprinted from PC Magazine, July 2000, with permission. Copyright © 2000, Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.
² Reprinted from Ziff Davis Smart Business for the New Economy, January 2001, with permission. Copyright © 2000, Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.
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