Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, April 5, 2007
LAS VEGAS, April 9 // -- CheapCaribbean.com has always been known as a place to find the best deals to Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Mexico. It appears everyone is starting to take notice.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070409/NEM086)
Travelzoo (Nasdaq: TZOO), a NASDAQ publicly traded global Internet media company, announced CheapCaribbean.com as the winner of the 2007 "Best Overall Provider of Outstanding Travel Deals" at a gala award ceremony attended by travel industry leaders, movers and shakers at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas on Thursday, April 5. The Travelzoo Awards (TM), also known as 'The Tzoos', is the first annual awards program of its kind in the United States that identifies and honors the companies behind the best travel deals of the year.
"The Tzoo Award is a symbol of quality and is our way of recognizing the companies we know to provide the best value in travel deals," said Ralph Bartel, chairman and chief executive officer, Travelzoo. "Since the company's inception in 1998, our producers have developed extensive criteria to evaluate the travel deals that we publish. The Awards allow us to recognize companies that have consistently exceeded these criteria throughout the year. By acknowledging these companies, we are endorsing where travelers can go to find the best values on the Internet."
CheapCaribbean.com has grown from a simple idea six years ago to become a well-respected travel provider of the best beach destination deals plus one of the top websites in the world dedicated to travel to Bermuda, the Caribbean and Mexico.
"We have always felt the CheapCaribbean.com customer and the Travelzoo subscriber were one in the same," stated 'Caribbean Jim' Hobbs, President and Founder of CheapCaribbean.com. "When you realize, of the 10 million Travelzoo subscribers in the United States, more than 55% have a household income of $75,000 or above and more than 75% have a college degree or greater, you quickly see how similar our customer bases can be. Also, more than half of these subscribers fall in the 45-65 age group, and 73% have a U.S. passport, versus 27% for the total U.S. population. Since passports are required to nearly all of our destinations, we feel Travelzoo provides a perfect source for our outstanding deals."
Caribbean Jim adds, "CheapCaribbean.com provides hundreds of reservations per day to travelers across the United States. The acclaim sure to follow the receipt of this important award will further increase awareness of the tremendous savings offered on our website."
How Travelzoo Made Its CheapCaribbean.com Choice for Top Honor:
Travelzoo Award Criteria
In order to determine Travelzoo Award winners, a committee of travel deal experts examined a collection of offers from over 600 travel companies. After evaluating all of the offers provided by each company in 5 specific areas they arrived at a list of 59 finalist companies that consistently surpassed the rigorous criteria. Specific deals were then debated from a quantitative and qualitative perspective within each category. Award winners consistently achieved top status in every evaluation criteria.
The criteria included:
-- Competitiveness: These companies offered competitive travel deals that
were equal to or greater in value when compared to similar offerings in
the marketplace. Finalist companies regularly developed deals that
inspired Travelzoo users to book trips they did not otherwise plan on
taking.
-- Reliability: The deals provided by finalist companies, when test booked
by Travelzoo's Test Booking Center(TM), were found to be easy to book
having a low incidence of usability issues. The Test Booking Center
compiles thousands of data points each week in order to test online and
offline experiences that users can have when booking deals including
availability, accuracy of information published and ease of booking.
-- Consistency: All companies consistently provided Travelzoo users with
several exceptional offers throughout the past year that inspired
incremental travel, based on user feedback and reporting from
advertisers.
-- Appeal to travelers: These companies consistently achieved high ratings
from Travelzoo users throughout the past year. As a way to improve
content offerings, Travelzoo collects user data on how attractive a
given deal is to each user. To achieve finalist status, these
companies needed to develop deals that scored well among Travelzoo's
users.
-- Quality: All companies provided travel deals so good that Travelzoo
staff would recommend booking an offer from these companies to their
family and friends.
About CheapCaribbean.com
Headquartered in Doylestown, PA, CheapCaribbean.com is a member of Caribbean Online Marketing and Management Group (COMM Group Inc.). Since 2000, the company has grown from 4 employees to over 150, with hundreds of reservations booked daily on the website. CheapCaribbean.com is the home of CheapFinder (TM) patented pricing technology which allows a customer to find more affordable vacations on and around the dates requested. For more information, visit http://www.cheapcaribbean.com.
About COMM Group, Inc.
COMM Group, Inc. is the parent company of several online travel companies, providing travel products and services to leisure travelers. One of the fastest-growing travel providers in the United States focused on the Caribbean, Mexico and other top leisure destinations, COMM Group Inc. owns and operates a diversified portfolio of travel brands including CheapCaribbean.com, TravelHunters.com, BookArubaNow.com, BookBermudaNow.com, BookMartinique.com, BookPuertoRico.com, and enjoys strategic partnerships with companies such as Inter-Island Tours. At COMM Group Inc.'s core is its commitment to offering quality products at the lowest rate available, providing customer service of the highest level, and making the reservation process easy and safe for its customers. For more information, visit http://www.commgroupinc.com/.
About Travelzoo
Travelzoo is a global Internet media company. Travelzoo's media properties, which reach more than 11 million travel enthusiasts in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Germany, include the Travelzoo(R) Web site (http://www.travelzoo.com), the Top 20(R) list, the Newsflash(TM) e-mail alert service and SuperSearch(TM), a travel search engine. Travelzoo publishes offers from more than 600 advertisers. Travelzoo's deal experts review each offer to find the best travel deals and confirm their true value. Travelzoo is headquartered in New York City.
CONTACT: Kas Vaughn of COMM Group, Inc., +1 (215) 348-8775 x7122,
+1 (800) 915-2322 x7122, or kvaughn@cheapcaribbean.com
Photo: Digital High Resolution Available
