News & Stories

Augsburg. Up until March 2020, it worked like a crystal ball; their forecasts were exact down to nearest percent. Then Covid-19 swept the forecast off the table. How do revenue managers predict occupancy and RevPAR? At the end of November, with decisions taken in many countries regarding Christmas and winter business, every hotelier knows: The near future remains unpredictable. Old data seems useless. Or is it? Data analysts, revenue managers, technology and AI experts show new ways to forecast.

Bern. "Lex Booking" in Switzerland is getting closer. On Wednesday, 11 November 2020, the Federal Council opened the consultation procedure - the preliminary stage to a hearing in the Federal Council on an amendment to the Federal Act against Unfair Competition. This paves the way for banning price parity clauses between online booking platforms and accommodation providers.

Southlake/Texas. Sabre Corporation now cooperates with AI and ML, with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. They are the foundation for the first smart tool for personalised sales in the travel and tourism industry.

Wilmslow. The ICO, the UK Information Commissioner's Office, has imposed a fine on Marriott International Inc of 18.4 million Pounds for failing to keep millions of customers’ personal data secure. The decision was published on 30 October 2020.

Augsburg. Innovative, funny and scary things from the digital world. Today: Contactless services to be stored online / More weather for B2B customers / Planning independent business trips / Start-up support made in Germany / Germany's Europe-wide robot leader / Digitalization not a climate protector? / Bank uses voice profile.

Regensburg. Artificial intelligence should be used much more intensively in the real estate industry. AI processes lead to more precise results than standardised IT is capable of. In a discussion, a professor for real estate management called a spade a spade and gave concrete, positive examples.

Amsterdam. While Booking.com is restructuring globally after the devastating impact Covid-19 has had on its business, others are using the pandemic as an opportunity to gear up and challenge the giant. Three companies pledge for more fairness towards hoteliers. Beterboeken.nl in the Netherlands, Fairbooking.com and leboncoin.fr in France all have different strategies and different financial support but one common goal: weakening giant OTAs and taking market shares in Europe...to start with.

Berlin. A good one in four companies in the real estate industry now invests more than 5% of its annual turnover in the digital transformation. A comparison over time in particular shows digitalization investments have become a fixed, significant factor in the real estate industry. Two years ago, the share of companies which spent more than 5% of their turnover on Digitalization was only half of that, at 14%.

Karlsruhe. The German Federal Court of Justice has corrected a decision of the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf of 4 June 2019: This court had declared the narrow rate parity clauses of Booking.com to be necessary and proportionate. Now, the OTA may no longer prohibit lower prices on hotel websites.

Vienna. Where does the Austrian hotel industry stand technologically? The ÖHV and Hotelhero have determined this for the first time in a report and are enthusiastic about the status quo of the companies. Despite digitalisation, however, local support is still needed. Further country reports are planned.