HONG KONG - September 2008 - Preferred Hotel Group partners with one of Asia Pacific’s leading travel meta-search engines, Wego.com, to further extend its reach to travelers booking hotels online. Through this partnership, Wego.com will drive online bookers directly to Preferred Hotel Group’s brand websites including www.PreferredHotels.com, www.PreferredBoutique.com, www.SummitHotels.com, and www.SterlingHotels.com.

Wego searches across 100+ travel websites in the time that it normally takes to search just one. This partnership will enable Preferred Hotel Group to promote its global portfolio of over 650 independent hotels and resorts to online visitors using Wego.com. Consumers will see the latest pricing and room availabilities for Preferred Hotel Group member properties.

“We recognize the importance of partnerships with vertical search engines as a cost-effective channel to increase our online distribution, as well as promoting brand awareness directly to potential guests. There is no doubt that Wego will assist in significantly increasing our online market share through rate transparency,” commented Mark Wong, Vice President, Marketing and Development - Asia Pacific.

Wego Founder & Chief Commercial Officer Craig Hewett said, “We are delighted to be working with Preferred Hotel Group as their portfolio offers our users a selection of the finest independent hotel and resort properties worldwide. This year is set to be a year of great growth for Wego, in terms of new product features and increasing user traffic, all of which are sure to benefit partners like Preferred Hotel Group.”

About Preferred Hotel Group
Celebrating 40 years of excellence, Preferred Hotel Group is a global leader in the hospitality industry, delivering high-performance sales, marketing, and technology solutions to more than 650 independent hotels and resorts in over 75 countries. Its family of brands represents a collection of the finest hotels in the world and include: Preferred Hotels® & Resorts (www.PreferredHotels.com), Preferred Boutique™ (www.PreferredBoutique.com), Summit Hotels & Resorts™ (www.SummitHotels.com), Sterling Hotels™ (www.SterlingHotels.com) and Historic Hotels of America™ (www.HistoricHotels.org). For more information, please visit www.PreferredHotelGroup.com.

In September 2007, the company entered the luxury real estate market with the launch of Preferred Residences™ - a membership and exchange program for luxury shared ownership resorts that provides an exceptional level of service and amenities. Properties are held to exacting standards derived from the same Preferred Global Standards of Excellence™ on which the company has built its 40-year heritage in the hospitality industry. For more information, please visit www.PreferredResidences.com.

ASPAC MEDIA CONTACT:
Christine Cheong
Manager, Communications - Asia Pacific
Preferred Hotel Group
Tel: +852 3111 1898 | Fax: +852 3115 7770
CCheong@PreferredHotelGroup.com

About Wego.com
Wego.com (formerly Bezurk.com) allows travelers to search for flights, hotels, travel deals and travel research across 100+ travel websites in the time that it normally takes to search just one. Wego searches travel websites in real-time so that the latest pricing and availability are shown. Travelers are then linked through to partner websites to book. Wego.com was founded in 2005 by former executives from Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yahoo!, Priceline and ZUJI. News Digital Media, the Australian digital arm of News Limited and part of News Corp (NYSE: NWS), is an investor. In 2007, Business 2.0 magazine named Bezurk as one of “31 of the world’s hottest international web startups.” For more information, please visit www.wego.com/about.

Addition of Ctrip, Cleartrip, Oberoi Hotels, Hainan Airlines and Air China brings total travel partners available on Wego.com to 116

SINGAPORE, 8 September 2008 – Asia’s fastest growing travel search engine Wego.com has recently added multiple new airline, hotel, online travel agent and tour operator partners, which will further enhance consumer experience in Internet travel shopping.

Leading the new additions are:

• Ctrip, a leading Chinese online travel agency
• Cleartrip, a leading Indian online travel agency
• Air China, the national flag carrier of China
• Hainan Airlines, a Chinese domestic airline
• Oberoi Hotels, an Indian luxury hotel chain

The addition of these partners brings the total number of travel sites through which Wego users can search and compare prices for air fares, hotel rates and packages to 116.

“We’re thrilled to get so many new partners aboard so soon after we launched Wego in May of this year,” says Craig Hewett, Wego’s Founder and Chief Commercial Officer. “We see the addition of different types of travel sites from all over the region as a sure sign of confidence in Wego and the travel search engine business model.”

Also announced were new partnerships with Excite Holidays, an online travel agency from Australia, Aero International, an online travel agency from Hong Kong and Country Holidays and Easyway Travel, tour operators from Singapore.

Since the site re-branded from Bezurk to Wego in May 2008, there has seen significant traffic growth. For 2008 as a whole, monthly traffic has increased by 2½ times. Wego also recently launched wego.com.au in Australia, the first of many local sites the company will be introducing throughout the Asia Pacific region.

“We are committed to delivering highly qualified and ready-to-buy online travel shoppers to our partners,” adds Hewett. “All throughout Asia Pacific, more and more people are now traveling and using Wego to research and book travel. It’s these Internet savvy, value-conscious travelers that Wego is designed to serve and deliver to our travel partners.”

Content from Excite Holidays, Country Holidays and Easyway Travel can already be found in Wego search results. The rest of the new partners will be integrated in the coming weeks.

[For Wego.com logos and screen grabs: www.wego.com/mediakit]

For media queries about this story, please contact:

DEBBIE R COLOMA
PR & Media Consultant for Wego.com
DRC Media Consultancy
Email: debbie.coloma@mac.com

About Wego.com

Wego.com (formerly Bezurk.com) allows travelers to search for flights, hotels, travel deals and travel research across 100+ travel websites in the time that it normally takes to search just one. Wego searches travel websites in real-time so that the latest pricing and availability are shown. Travelers are then linked through to partner websites to book. Wego.com was founded in 2005 by former executives from Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yahoo!, Priceline and ZUJI. News Digital Media, the Australian digital arm of News Limited and part of News Corp (NYSE: NWS), is an investor. In 2007, Business 2.0 magazine named Bezurk as one of “31 of the world’s hottest international web startups”. For more information, please visit www.wego.com/about.

Wego.com is website of the month on TimeOut Singapore. In the article, TimeOut Singapore covers Wego’s name change and how using the travel search engine’s price comparison features would benefit travellers in general

“Wego’s transformation is that it gives you from the outset the base fare alongside the real fare (inclusive of fuel surcharges and other taxes), and lets you compare prices offered by the hitherto unchallenged www.zuji.com. With such transparency, Wego might be the new travel guru to follow.”

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