Luxury hotels sign up for website launch
More than 120 of the world’s most luxurious and exclusive hotels and related travel brands have signed up for the launch of a new travel portal, Luxury Explorer (LE), which goes live on June 30 (www. luxuryexplorer.com).
The site will offer a carefully selected collection of worldwide hotels, resorts and luxury travel experiences that have been handpicked using rigorous selection criteria, according to LE chairman Peter Matthews. It also links visitors directly to the hotels’ websites.
Partners include city hotels, exclusive resorts, exotic retreats, train operators, yacht charters and river cruises. Those to have signed up so far include the Cipriani in Venice, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire and the Orient Express.
Matthews is also managing director of design agency Nucleus, which has developed the site and the proprietary software behind it.
He says that while there are already many travel portals, few list the world’s most exclusive hotels, and those that do rarely link to the hotel website because they want consumers to book through the portal. But LE will use its own software, which will allow it to track referrals to hotel sites – and the success of those referrals – so that it can charge commission.
