Hotel booking site announces rebrand launch

Pan-African online hotel booking site, Hotelnownow has announced the introduction of a range of new features and services as part of a brand relaunch aimed at securing the company’s position as one of the top platforms for online hotel bookings in the region.

Founded in 2014, hotelnownow has grown to become one of the largest hotel bookings deals site in the region, providing group corporate and consumer clients with the finest accommodation options in Nigeria and across other parts of Africa. The brand relaunch campaign with the slogan - ‘Why Pay More’ - kicked off with a new TV campaign featuring Funke Bucknor Obruthe, Creative Director and founder of Zapphaire Events, one of the leading events planning companies in Nigeria.

The company made a strategic decision to focus the initial brand relaunch campaign efforts on the hospitality industry in Nigeria, with plans to scale up to other key countries in the region over the Nigeria has been identified as one of the fastest growing markets for hospitality in the Sub-Saharan African region. As the country continues to be a favorite business and tourism destination, the hospitality industry has seen investments of over US$3 billion in the last five years alone. The rapid growth of internet and mobile penetration in the region and the changing attitude of the populace to be more trusting of online commerce portend a big opportunity in the hospitality space.

Speaking on the brand relaunch, the Chief Sales and Commercial Officer for the hotelnownow.com, Mr. Okey Ochulo, said, “Over the past months, our brand and acquisition teams at hotelnownow.com have been working hard to understand the current business and consumer needs in the Nigerian hospitality sector; and then to translate these findings into features and offerings to meet the needs of the industry stakeholders.”

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“As part of the relaunch, the brand has introduced a new website that is more intuitive and user friendly. As a result of the changes implemented, users of the platform are empowered to easily locate the best possible hotel deals. With thousands of prescreened hotels to choose from and the top weekly deals highlighted, every visitor to the site would definitely find a hotel to meet their unique needs," he added.

One of the new features that would immensely benefit users of the platform is the integration with the hotelnownow.com Morewardz Loyalty program. With this program, customers acquire loyalty points for every booking they make on the site. Beneficiaries of the loyalty program get a loyalty card that also doubles as a charge card. The loyalty card can be used both to redeem points in the loyalty program and to make regular transactions. Redeemed points can be claimed at any time and converted into a hotel booking or can be used to pay for a variety of other services at any hotel in the network.

In support of the numerous business trips that account for the bulk of hotel stays in the region, the brand also revealed that it has introduced a new package, specially designed to aid organizations with easily securing corporate reservations for rooms and meeting rooms. With this ‘Corporate Edge Package’, companies and organizations can leverage on key partnerships struck by hotelnownow to get even better deals on individual or group bookings.

In the words of Mr. Ochulo, “This relaunch affirms the confidence that we have in the growth potential of the hospitality sector in Africa today. At hotelnonwnow, we are pleased that we can deliver a one of a kind portal that provides the best hotel deals at top notch convenience to our customers; the platform can be accessed from any internet enabled device ranging from mobile phones to tablets and computers. In line with our commitment to be the leading online hotel booking portal in the region hotelnownow will continue optimizing its services and platform to provide ‘best in class’ experiences to all our stakeholders and users.”