The price model remains

Augsburg. HRS's decision to raise commissions across the board last week to a standard rate of 15 percent for all distribution channels and subsidiaries caused ructions within the German hotel industry. Whilst some demanded an "HRS free week", others were more sanguine and began to analyse the change.

Vienna. It was just ten years ago that Austria's regions held a leading position in e-tourism. But as they were not able to translate this into commercial success, today's hotel industry is moaning about its dependence on external portals. Austria's 4 and 5-star hotels alone paid about 46 million Euro commission to various reservation platforms in 2010. 37 million Euro of this went abroad – the majority to booking.com. However, Austria's tourism experts had been on the right path, but the German HRS online travel agent thought more strategically and bought Tiscover. And HRS sticks to "best rates" in Austria today too.

Berlin. The speed of acquisitions in the world of IT significantly increased last year. At the same time, search engines and social media like Google and Facebook keep advancing, implementing more and more new models. And finally, a breathtakingly increasing number of people are using their mobile device for making reservations and communication as well. Due to high costs, hoteliers promote their own website. But who will win this race? Just a few? Sales experts debate on the current developments in the field of hotel distribution at the 7th ITB Hospitality Day on Thursday, March 8, 2012 between 2 and 3 pm at ITB Berlin, hall 7.1b/London. HRS, Expedia, Sabre, and Justbook Mobile will meet. The question to them: Fewer providers with more power? What new dependencies have the latest market shifts produced?