Responding to recent announcement by Hotels.com related to new features and enhancement of its website, Interbed.com has stated it “offers comparison-shopping and customer testimonials on its global hotel information portal since its first day of operation several years ago”.

Herman A. Thuy, creator, founder and president of the company, according to a release on travelindustrywire.com, said: “Hotels.com’s announcement of `side-by-side property comparisons’ is not an industry’s first but flagrant plagiarism and infringement of copyright.” He added, “interbed.com shows guest testimonials as a key differentiator since day one.”

“On Interbed.com, travellers see an easy-to-scan chart, showing up to fourteen hotel criteria for each available hotel at destination, comparable at-a-single-glance. They can also read, where available, testimonials from earlier guests, posted as angel or devil stories. Interbed.com’s unique concept reflects the hotels’ desire to reduce reliance on agents and to take back control of rates, margins, yield and brand,” added the release.

“Hotels never have to pay us commissions or booking fees, and already well-informed travellers simply click through to their hotel(s) of choice, where they always benefit from the very best deal up to the last minute, with the only reliable booking confirmation directly from the hotel,” said Thuy. On Interbed.com, hotels achieve immediate global and guaranteed visibility and exposure each time travellers select their city as destination, according to the release.

On Hotels.com’s announcement, Thuy said: “Guides based on evaluators and inspectors are obsolete, as also demonstrated by the fading glory of a French Good Food guide. Smart consumers now mainly rely on verifiable peer testimonials - on Interbed.com, each angel or devil story is date-stamped and signed with a double-checked and contactable email address of the author. Any devil testimonial does not go online, if at all, before the hotel has been able to comment or correct.”

“Interbed.com offers a great service to the traveller, but is definitely on the side of hoteliers - we do have faith in the hotel’s marketing information, perfectly controlled by the buying power of the online traveller,” said Thuy.

According to an official release issued by Hotels.com earlier this week, a section of the release said: “In a move to further establish itself as the leader in researching and booking lodging, Hotels.com announces the launch of new website features that give consumers all the expert tools they need to plan, shop and book lodging on or offline. New superior site features include: enhanced search tools, industry’s first side-by-side property comparisons, one of the industry’s leading and most useful property descriptions, virtual tours, and guest ratings. Additionally, Hotels.com provides its customers the ability to speak with its team of city specialists at 1-800-2-HOTELS who can provide the expertise to help a customer find the right property based upon their specific travel needs.”

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