Marketing

Commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC^®) Rudy Keeling announced today that the Conference has reached a multi-year agreement with Groople, Inc. and Wyndham Hotel Group to become the official hotel booking agency, and the official hotel group, respectively, of the ECAC.

The business alliance establishes consistency for booking travel to ECAC championships and includes an online platform for teams and traveling fans to book their hotel accommodations.  The platform is scheduled to launch in October, 2007.   Groople will also carry a dedicated customer service/support line for all ECAC travelers.

The ECAC-Groople booking engine will feature reduced pricing on group and individual travel at all Wyndham Hotel Group properties, including Super 8^®, Days Inn^®, Ramada^®, Baymont Inn & Suites^®, Wingate^® by Wyndham, Travelodge^®, Howard Johnson^®, AmeriHost Inn^® and Knights Inn^®hotels.  As the official family of hotels  of the ECAC,  Wyndham Hotel Group hotels will receive preferred placement on the group booking engine. 

"Groople's ability to handle hotel room bookings for all of our 98 championship events while offering a booking solution to the ECAC membership that is both cost-effective and user-friendly is most important to us," says Rudy Keeling, Commissioner of the ECAC. "With long standing relationships in the industry, Groople is in the best position to negotiate price-points for the ECAC, our membership, and everyone else affiliated with the Conference."

"This business relationship has the potential to change the sports travel industry by leveraging the large volume of travelers to games with secure price-points not available to individual travelers," says Mike Stacy, CEO of Groople. "By providing the ECAC with more than the traditional travel services, and offering both online and offline agent support, we can meet the needs of the organization."

The ECAC Corporate Partner Program is dedicated to developing relationships with commercial entities that are committed to the mission of the ECAC, support the ideals of intercollegiate athletics, value the pursuit of excellence on and off the field of play, and serve the needs of the membership. The Corporate Partner Program offers a wide range of marketing opportunities, including, but not limited to, championship naming rights, entitlement rights to student-athlete recognition programs, and official supplier designations.

About Groople, Inc.

Groople (http://www.groople.com/) is a combination of the words GROups and peOPLE - GROOPLE...we understand groups and we provide the best planning and booking tools for any group! Headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, Groople was launched in 2004. For more than three years Groople, the leading group travel Website, has worked with thousands of people from a wide variety of groups and has come to understand that planning, searching and booking group travel arrangements should be a fun part of group travel. At Groople, we're working around the clock to negotiate the best rates for flights, hotels, cars and cruises and find the best locations to fit your group's needs. We provide booking capability on more than 60,000 hotels located on four continents, twenty-five islands and one mountain top. Through our social networking environment we allow travelers to collaborate and compare travel options before any decisions are made. After reserving a block of rooms, group members are welcome to pay for their rooms individually online or in one payment made by the group leader.

Groople...Group Travel Made Easy

About Wyndham Hotel Group

Wyndham Hotel Group, one of three principal components of Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN), encompasses nearly 6,500 hotels and more than 539,000 hotel rooms on six continents.  All hotels either are independently owned franchises or managed by a Wyndham Hotel Group subsidiary.  Wyndham Hotel Group's TripRewards^® loyalty program is the largest in the lodging industry based on the number of participating hotels.  Wyndham Hotel Group is based in Parsippany, N.J.  Additional information is available at www.wyndhamworldwide.com.

About the ECAC^®

The ECAC (www.ecac.org) is the nation's largest athletic and the only multi-divisional conference with 321 Divisions I, II, and III colleges and universities from Maine to George and westerly to Illinois. Established in 1938, the ECAC, a non-profit service organization, sponsors 98 championships in 37 men's and women's sports, assigns more than 5,200 officials in 15 sports, administers 10 affiliate sports organizations and six playing leagues and recognizes more than 4,000 student-athletes in 21 sports through the public relations arm of the conference. The ECAC serves as the primary conference for select members in the sports of men's and women's ice hockey, men's lacrosse, men's gymnastics, wrestling, fencing and rowing.