News & Stories

Augsburg. As the hospitality industry gradually ramps up its mobile platforms, a new study published by the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research finds that travelers consequently delete useless Apps. Will Wearables – spearheaded by the new Apple Watch – change the game? Starwood, Accor, Expedia and HRS are the first to connect with the Apple Watch.

Berlin. Under CEO Denis Ciofu, the HotelTonight App provider has chosen the Russian market as its next target area. And at the same time, the office in Berlin is being developed.

Wiesbaden. The demand for Revenue Managers has risen sharply across the sector. Hotel chains have meanwhile even set up external revenue management centres and stock them with highly-paid experts. The concerns of many a director that an in-house revenue manager may steal his thunder in the hotel itself therefore appear unfounded. In terms of responsibility for operations and for the wages of the Cluster Revenue Managers, things look different though. The power of the Revenue Manager is rising. International chains like Accor and Carlson Rezidor, like the owner-operator Pandox or the German operator HMG describe their models and experiences, whilst two headhunters weigh personnel costs of the new revenues makers.

Cologne. The UK-based Travelport platform has concluded a several years' distribution agreement with the German HRS hotel portal. This ties the hotel offers of HRS together with the Travelport GDS. With this, HRS is connected to all three important GDSs – Travelport, Amadeus, and Sabre. And the new HRS office that has just opened in New York has one more task.

Berlin. Up to now, the HRS hotel mediation portal has almost exclusively focused on the business segment, but in the future, will also focus on the MICE segment and on holiday home mediation. "Integration" is the motto of the hour at HRS. HRS Managing Director, Tobias Ragge, was invited to a press conference during ITB. He sees an additionally enormous potential in the tapping of both segments. To him, the hotel industry is still in their "digital baby shoes". With this, the go-getting HRS chief certainly has not only the hotel industry in his mind.

Bern/Siders. In 2014, every fourth hotel booking in Switzerland was generated through online booking platforms. The online travel agencies are therefore continuing on their growth rate. According to estimates, their revenue in Switzerland alone amounted to one billion Franconia in 2014.

Paris/Bremen. From the outside, it looks like France holds a grudge against giant OTA Booking.com. At first, hoteliers' unions together filed a complaint against Booking in July 2013 and then the Minister of Economy claimed contracts between the OTA and hoteliers were anti-competitive. Now it's Accor's turn to take legal action against its current "partner" for unfair competition. Peter Verhoeven switched from Accor to Booking only nine months ago. The mood on the market is turning against Booking.com. The German HRS online reservation portal headquartered in Cologne refrains from legally attacking the most recent court decision on maintaining rate parity. Consequently, the German antitrust agency finally had enough leeway to discipline Booking.com – being HRS's competitor – in the same way as it did with HRS. Moreover, last week, German hotelier Marco Nussbaum, CEO and founder of the prizeotel budget design group accused Peter Verhoeven, Booking's head of EMEA, of "guest theft" in an open letter.

Bremen. As hotelier and CEO of prizeotel, Marco Nussbaum, was not directly heard by Booking.com, he then resorted to the means of an "open letter". In this, he accused Peter Verhoeven, Managing Director Europe, Middle East, Africa with Booking.com, of "guest pilfering". This was last week. Neither the company nor Verhoeven have reacted yet.

Munich. Check-in, drop off your suitcase, freshen up and jump into the Internet – this is the daily routine among many business travellers. And, at the latest, that is often when the trouble starts, as accessing the web comes with additional charges. Free Internet is usually only available in the lobby – if at all – but with a reduced bandwidth. Those who need high-speed online access have to pay most of the time. Marriott's case in the US shows how particularly major hotel chains vehemently battle free online access. The court penalized Marriott's actions with a fine of 600,000 dollars. Many chains are quite subdued in this respect and not transparent when directly asked and/or on their websites.

Amsterdam/Brussels. Last Monday, Booking.com agreed to soften the "rate parity clause" part of its agreement with European hoteliers. Under investigation in several countries, the Amsterdam-based company seems to have moved fast in order to end EU probes. But it only seems to be a smart move.