Southwest Airlines Introduces New Hotel Booking Features

DALLAS, Feb. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Does booking a hotel cause more hassle than it should? Southwest Airlines has introduced new updates and features on the Hotel booking page of southwest.com  to enhance and simplify the hotel booking experience for Customers. New features allow Customers to make informed decisions and find the perfect hotel fit. From TripAdvisor traveler ratings and reviews, to multi-room booking capability and neighborhood searches, the Hotel page provides everything Customers need to find the perfect hotel!

Now, directly on southwest.com/hotels, Customers will see the TripAdvisor traveler rating in the most recent traveler reviews for each hotel, allowing customers to make more informed decisions based on fellow travelers' feedback. Research shows that hotel reviews are used by 77 percent of travelers when making a hotel booking decision(1). The addition of TripAdvisor reviews will allow Customers to easily compare and contrast hotels to make the right selection for travel. TripAdvisor hotel ratings and reviews will be available on nearly all of the hotel properties that are available to book on southwest.com.

The updated Hotel page will also allow multi-room booking— a Customer may book two rooms at one time. This is a feature that is ideal for families who need an additional room. Southwest Airlines wants to provide an amazing Hotel page to make booking rooms an easy process online.

Customers using the Hotel page also will be able to narrow down hotel searches to specific neighborhoods. The search tool provides users preference of neighborhoods rather than large city searches. With all of these new tools, Southwest Customers have everything they need right at their fingertips to book hotel rooms.

From distinguishing Rapid Rewards frequent flyer program partners, to adding map functionality and hotel reviews, Southwest would like to ensure that Customers are not only getting great deals when booking hotels on southwest.com, but also have all the tools necessary to make the right decision.

ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

In its 40th year of service, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other low fare carriers—offering a reliable product with exemplary Customer Service.  Southwest Airlines is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded, now serving 69 cities in 35 states.  Beginning March 13, 2011, Southwest will initiate service to Charleston and Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina, and on March 27, 2011, service will begin to Newark Liberty International Airport.  Southwest also is one of the most honored airlines in the world known for its commitment to the triple bottom line of Performance, People, and Planet.  To read more about how Southwest is doing its part to be a good citizen, visit southwest.com/cares to read the Southwest Airlines One Report™.  Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,200 flights a day and has nearly 35,000 Employees systemwide.

www.southwest.com

(1)  Research from Jupiter, Feb. 2009

SOURCE Southwest Airlines