New Castle Partners With VFM Interactive

Boost Online Booking Through Powerful Rich Media

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. October 14, 2008

AUGUST 4, 2006. In the Internet age, a picture may still be worth a thousand words, but a picture that talks to you can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. This new reality is the basis for a highly successful partnership between New Castle Hotels and Resorts, a leading hotel industry management company and VFM Interactive, the industry leader in rich media management, production and distribution.

New Castle Hotels, has chosen VFM to provide many New Castle properties with PhotoMontages, a rich media production that leverages existing still photographs and combines innovative digital effects, such as motion graphics with voice-over and music tracks to give a video quality interactive experience, without having to shoot original footage.

'New Castle has always been at the forefront of using Internet technology,' says Bob Pope, vice president of sales and marketing for New Castle. 'We knew having potential customers engage in an online, visual and interactive experience would be a valuable sales tool. However, budget realities made it impractical to shoot video of all our properties. The PhotoMontage product was the perfect solution because it allowed us to use our existing photo library in an innovative, effective way.'

In addition to displaying the PhotoMontages on their own Web sites, New Castle properties also benefit from having their rich media distributed across the electronic channel through VFM's Vscape(R). Using this Web-based digital media management and distribution tool, the properties can selectively distribute their rich media to thousands of Web sites, including GDSs, search engines, meta-search engines, and more than 20,000 travel sites - using a single point of entry, giving powerful control to individual hotels.

'Research tells us that the average Internet booker will visit three to five sites before choosing a hotel,' explains Paolo Boni, president and CEO of VFM. 'We also know that visuals, including still photos, videos and virtual tours, are among the most important factors for consumers when choosing a hotel online. Because of this, we've seen over and over that distributing rich media across the electronic channel gives any property far more clout in impacting the buying decisions of consumers, providing media that engages all the senses and truly conveys the travel experience.'

Research released just last month by comScore underlines the importance of Internet-wide distribution. According to the comScore study, almost half of all consumers (46 percent) begin their travel research at travel sites such as Travelocity and Orbitz. This is nearly double the proportion of people who reported starting their research at a branded airline, hotel or car rental site (24 percent).

Pope notes that the PhotoMontages have helped New Castle properties establish better branding and awareness in the online space. New Castle operates independent resorts as well as properties under Hilton, Marriott and Starwood flags, and all benefit from using media that help them stand out in the very crowded landscape of internet travel shopping and commerce.