Have you joined the HotelTravel.com group on Facebook yet? Come on, join up and find out more about the company and the people working to bring you value-for-money room rates around the globe. HotelTravel.com has already established an impressive foothold on Facebook and is laying the groundwork on other social media sites, creating innovative new communication tools to quickly grow its customer base.

In just over one month the HotelTravel.com Facebook Group has already topped 500 members. In coming weeks, HotelTravel.com will launch incentive programmes to encourage group members to extend invites to their network. This includes points that can be redeemed in our proposed loyalty programme and feature hotel deals available only to HotelTravel.com Facebook Group members.

The company is targeting more than 2,000 group members by April when the first promotions and exclusive offers will be launched. Hotel owners and managements are encouraged to join the group, become a fan or both. Hotels that are in the Facebook group and are one of the website’s Featured Hotels will enjoy two unique distribution benefits available exclusively on HotelTravel.com.

The HotelTravel.com Facebook Group will also give members and fans the opportunity to communicate directly with the team which compiles the monthly newsletter and e-magazine. Members can pose questions, which can be answered by our experts and other members. You can also find your travel solutions on facebook with Q&A with HT.com Travel GooRoo Every member is entitled to receive a free newsletter each month.

Last month HotelTravel.com also broke new ground by exhibiting at the world's biggest travel fair, ITB, in Berlin, Germany. This year there were over 11,000 exhibitors from more than 180 countries – fulfilling ITB’s role as a barometer for travel and tourism trends world worldwide and setting standards for the industry. In addition to being the world’s leading platform for the travel industry, attracting over 100,000 trade visitors.

A team of four executives from HotelTravel.com travelled to Berlin to aggressively expand the company's European hotel network, a vital part of the company's growing portfolio. The executive team met up with suppliers, international hotel chains and independent hotels.

The team included CEO and Founder Blair Speers, Director Business Development William P Main, Chief Information Officer Olivier Dombey and Chief Communications Officer Tom Racette. They represent a company that is truly international - our management and staff come from over 20 countries and speak more than 15 languages.

Although the international travel industry is going through a rough patch, there was good news for Internet sales companies at ITB. Research based on 500,000 interviews in 58 countries around the world and released at the fair found that the number and value of Internet bookings would surge this year.

Another sector expected to show growth was low-cost airlines and trends expected to emerge strongly were a decrease in the length of trips, a move towards local tourism and an increase in last-minute bookings. HotelTravel.com is preparing to meet this challenge by substantially increasing its portfolio of hotels.

The HotelTavel.com representatives said hotel exhibitors were very receptive to working with the company and they had meetings with more than 100 companies during the three-day show. This included industry heavyweights and lots of mid-sized chains with hotels in major European markets. Over 60 HotelTravel.com media kits were also distributed to press during ITB.