Choice Web Site Now Translates to Three Languages - French, Spanish, German Translations Now Available

Visitors to the new version of www.choicehotels.com may now choose between four languages, including English. The site will detect the language preference of a user's browser and will automatically translate to that preference; alternately, a user may choose by clicking on the preferred language button on the homepage.

"With hotels in 43 nations around the world, it is imperative that we view all aspects of our services from a global perspective," said Gary Thomson, senior vice president and chief information officer for Choice. "By offering the full reservations capabilities of our web site in four languages, we are marketing our franchisees' hotels to millions of potential new guests."

According to Thomson, Choice designed and developed the translation management function of the web site internally. "Simply running our pages through a translator would have been easy to do - but extremely difficult to maintain," he said. "Instead, we built a system that is able to generate web pages dynamically - at the time they are requested by a user. Maintaining the dynamic aspect of the site while adding the translation function was critical."

Translations.com, a New-York based firm, was then hired to actually translate the site into French, Spanish and German, with oversight provided by Choice's international division staff and partners.

In addition to the translation function, the newest version of www.choicehotels.com also includes the following enhancements:

• A reduction in the number of pages required to reserve hotel rooms. Depending on the amount of information provided by guests, the number of pages required to make a booking is reduced by up to two - saving time in the booking process.
• Improved access to Choice properties via search engines including Yahoo, Google, Netscape and Alta Vista.
• Photographs of interior and exterior views of hotels included on the hotel list page. Users can now get to photos without having to go to hotels' individual pages, making it easier to view numerous properties.
• Direct links by state tourism web sites to Choice brand hotels within their respective states.

"We're always looking for ways to make our site more user-friendly for guests," said Thomson. "These new enhancements help us maintain www.choicehotels.com's status as one of the best sites in the industry."

Choice Hotels International [NYSE: CHH] , the world's second-largest lodging franchisor, franchises more than 5,000 hotels in 43 countries under the Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Clarion, Sleep Inn, Econo Lodge, MainStay Suites and Rodeway Inn brand names. For more information on Choice, visit the company's Internet site at www.choicehotels.com.

Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Clarion, Sleep Inn, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn, MainStay Suites and Choice Privileges are registered trademarks and service marks of Choice Hotels International.