Justbook vs. HRS - HRS complies with Anti-trust Commission

Munich. Google and Facebook are lining up "to digitize" mankind. Search engines and Social Media are developing new business models from the internet euphoria and increasing mobility. The traveller is becoming a transparent commodity that will be paid for by the click in the future. What the four talks at the "eMarketing Day" by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association and the Instituts Tourismuszukunft praised on Monday in Munich as a nearby, digital future sounds quite creepy. In contrast, the renewed discussion over the commission rise and the altered terms and conditions by the online mediator, HRS, looked like a medieval knight's tournament. Nevertheless, the latter was under heavier discussion. This subject gained a new dimension with the warning by the German Federal Anti-trust Commission toward HRS on last Friday. On Monday, Managing Directors, Tobias Ragge and Michael Simon, positioned themselves for the questions by HSMA members - and afterwards, took an opposing stand with hospitalityInside.com once again on the points that the hoteliers as well as the German Federal Anti-trust Commission hold as critical. After the interview with HRS, hospitalityInside.com asked the former Marriott distribution specialist and currently independent consultant, Bruno Wolf, from Frankfurt to comment on the answers by HRS.

Augsburg. For a week, it is presumably not only European hoteliers who are once again thinking about new forces in hotel distribution. But, the news of the foundation of the online hotel portal, Room Key, in the USA only briefly provided for an optimistic "wow". After one week, European hoteliers are viewing the company considerably more soberly. Then feelings ran high, particularly in the German market, when the online travel agent from Cologne, HRS, flexed their muscles: They tossed other distributors out of the running through their alliance with Amadeus while at the same time, confronted their current 250,000 hotel partners with an additional two percent commission. HRS has flexed their muscles - and the brand-new market player, justbook, that since Monday, also markets hotel offers via Apps was also permitted to feel this promptly. Reactions from the hotel industry on the latest events in distribution.