Travelodge kicks off the New Year with another attack on its rivals this week through a new £4m advertising campaign titled 'The Hotel Revolution'. The new campaign positions
Travelodge as the hotel industry's true consumer champion, highlighting its everyday low room rate of £26 and a further £20 million of price cuts for 2006.
The Doner Cardwell and Hawkins inspired campaign is aimed at changing consumers' attitudes to staying in hotels by driving a strong price message and communicating how easy it is to find the best prices via Travelodges online search tool. The launch executions titled 'Welcome to the hotel revolution' and 'Our New Year's revolution' will run from 2nd January 2006 across press, poster, web and radio.
Travelodge's Chief Operating Officer, Guy Parsons said, "This campaign is a call to arms for all potential hotel guests. Too many hoteliers rip customers off with high prices and misleading advertising. Our £26 room rate is not a passing promotion or a mere leader price, we have this rate everyday across the UK and they are easy to access with our new online search tool".
Andrew Hawkins, Managing Director of Doner Cardwell and Hawkins said, "This is a great campaign to get stuck into as it is aggressive and groundbreaking. The advertising will develop throughout 2006 to make consumers sit up and take notice of the value to be gained by staying at a Travelodge hotel."
Travelodge's 'Revolution' campaign is focused on driving even more traffic via its website. The adverts all highlight www.travelodge.co.uk as the best way to secure low prices. The hotel company has increased its online reservations from 17% in 2003 to 65% this year. Travelodge believes that this campaign will be instrumental in the companys aim to increase their web bookings to 80%.
Travelodge's new pricing strategy was launched on the 1st December 2005 delivering 500,000 £26 rooms, around 100,000 £10 rooms, and further price cuts on thousands of standard rates for 2006. Each of the company's 290 hotels were reviewed, undercutting prices of key competition in every location. The strategy produced three new, simple price bands - Supersaver (£10), Saver (£26) and Flexible.
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Notes to editors:
For more information contact:
Greg Dawson 0121 521 6644/07921 945778
As the first budget hotel brand to launch in the UK in 1985, Travelodge currently has approximately 290 sites across the UK in city centres, near attractions and airports.
The latest BDRC British Hotel Guest Survey (February 2005) named Travelodge as the joint number one hotel brand in the UK (with Hilton) and the number one budget brand.
DCH is part of Doner - the world's largest independent advertising agency. Key clients include Blockbuster, Youngs Seafood, Fullers and Nikon.