WorldRes.com provides a way for corporations to expand their portal offerings to include access to WorldRes.com’s unique network of over 10,500 hotels, bed and breakfasts, resorts and vacation rentals.  The partnership furthers WorldRes.com’s commitment to expanding channels of distribution for its member properties while providing the most expansive resource for leisure travel to customers via the Web. 

“Custom portals are gaining increased acceptance in the market,” said Greg Jones, CEO of WorldRes.com.  “It’s a growing space and we want to ensure we create a presence for our member properties through this exciting new venue.”

WorldRes.com was chosen by Epicentric to be a travel provider for Epicentric’s Syndication and Exchange Services, which features Internet content, commerce, and application services to Epicentric customers.  WorldRes.com will build a co-branded version of their consumer Web site, PlacestoStay.com, that will be accessible to customers who purchase Epicentric’s portal server.  WorldRes.com will provide those customers with the ability to search and then book online accommodation reservations through its unique real-time booking engine.

“Epicentric is committed to delivering unprecedented value to our customers with the widest range of content, applications, and services available,” Ed Anuff, Epicentric’s Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Products. 

“Leisure travel is an attractive addition to what we offer because it represents free time spent away from the office. We are happy to now be able to provide this option to our customers through our partnership with WorldRes.com.”

Epicentric’s Syndication and Exchange Services facilitates a cost-effective marketplace for Epicentric’s customers and partners to acquire, integrate, and distribute pre-negotiated, value-added Internet services.  Targeted specifically for companies building and enhancing B2B, B2C and B2E (business-to-employee) portals, Epicentric’s customers can select from a wide variety of business and community content sources, application services and commerce services, and rapidly enable these services within Epicentric’s portal solution or an existing portal site.  With the introduction of the WorldRes.com network to the program, customers will be able to access travel content through their Epicentric portals. 

About Epicentric
Epicentric is the leading provider of portal infrastructure software and services for the Internet and intranet marketplace.  The Epicentric Portal Server was built from the ground up to specifically meet the needs of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-employee (B2E) portals.  Epicentric’s portal solutions enable Internet, Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies, and government agencies to have complete ownership of their portal from a hosting, branding, and design perspective.  The Epicentric server-based and hosted service solutions aggregate and integrate the widest range of services, applications, content, and commerce offerings to provide a full-service, centralized starting point for customers, partners, and employees.  Incorporated in 1998, Epicentric is a privately-held company based in San Francisco, California, with offices in Chicago, Virginia, and New York City.  

About WorldRes.com, Inc.
WorldRes.com, Inc.operates the online distribution network that connects hotels to leisure travelers through a broad range of Web-based partners, including portals, travel and destination Web sites, convention and visitor bureaus, tourism authorities, online city guides, call centers and travel agents. For hotels, WorldRes.com offers an efficient, low-cost means for marketing and selling accommodations online. For distribution partners, WorldRes.com provides detailed information and booking capability for a wide range of properties, from bed and breakfasts and independent hotels to resorts, vacation rentals and hotel chains.
WorldRes.com was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California; WorldRes.com operates offices in Duesseldorf, Germany; Paris; Sophia Antipolis near Nice, France; and Staines, Middlesex, just outside London. WorldRes.com employees collectively possess an extensive knowledge of hotel marketing, systems and operations as well as Internet-based transaction technology. WorldRes.com owns and operates two consumer Web sites: PlacesToStay.com (www.placestostay.com), which offers real-time rates, reservations and information for all properties in the WorldRes.com system; and BedandBreakfast.com (www.bedandbreakfast.com), with information on more than 23,000 B&Bs and historic inns around the world.