€60m hotel portal checks into content deal


21 Mar 2007

The Dublin-based hotel bed provider that was bought by Travelport last year for €60m, Needahotel.com, has awarded a lucrative contract to another Irish company called Nexus451 to redevelop its website and deploy a new content management system.

Nexus451, in conjunction with Needahotel, will also be developing the Aer Lingus, Flybe and Aer Arann hotel websites. All three will be branded accordingly but will offer the same functionality as the Needahotel website.

The site, which is scheduled to go live this month, will also include a multi-lingual dimension with the content management system providing content based on the flag the visitor clicks on the home page.

“We put the website development out to tender and awarded the contract to Nexus451 based on the company’s experience in the travel website industry and the team’s knowledge of XML integration,” explained Eoin Clarke, airline affiliate manager at Needahotel.com.

“The time savings and improved service we can offer our customers is a huge benefit offered by Nexus451’s Caboodle Content Pro system,” Clarke added.

The existing Needahotel.com is a brochure site, which means special offers on the front page have to be manually updated.

The new system means that customers will have access to offers as soon as they become available from the site’s hotel and holiday partners. The increased functionality will allow customers to search and group hotels under different headings, for example, those containing a spa.

By John Kennedy