News & Stories

Vienna. HotelTonight is already present in 150 destinations worldwide. Since 25 September, the system has also been trying to establish a foothold in Austria.

Hamburg. The distribution of smartphones in Germany continues to rise unhampered. An increasing number of smartphone owners are discovering the application of mobile Internet devices for surfing and for mobile commerce.

London. InterContinental Hotels Group recently struck a compromise with the British Office of Fair Trade, which had accused the world's largest hotel group of limiting competition on online hotel rooms.

Bendorf. After the latest decision by the German Federal Cartel Office towards HRS, the German Hospitality, Sales and Marketing Association has initiated a survey among its members on the subject of price parity. The answers demonstrate the internal conflict of the industry.

Bonn. The German Federal Cartel Office expressed its competitive concerns about the "best rate clause" of the online travel agent HRS from Cologne in an official communication yesterday at noon. "After examining the statement of the hotel portal HRS and all other leading market participants, the German Federal Cartel Office issued another written warning to HRS for violating German and European competition law", says the statement. After the first warning in February 2012, HRS received the second and more detailed warning from the competition authorities. Tobis Ragge, Managing Director of HRS, has not given in, however. The German Hotel Association is "exceptionally" pleased about the Cartel Office's decision and hopes that the rate sovereignty will now fall back to the hotels.

Vienna. Austria had played first violin in the marketing of the Danube for many years. However, the gentle Danube waltz does not currently determine the music. The chafing between policy and product rules in the Vienna blame game. There has been an extra marketing campaign after the flooding, but many other problems have deeper roots in the past. Above all, the politically-inclined Danube Tourist Commission that is, in practice, a "paper tiger" is harvesting criticism. The Danube could even soon become EU inland waters: They are sitting on their own strategy in Brussels.

Hamburg. The market-leading positions of the powerful technology companies Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay and Apple – in short: The "AGFEA" companies - are admired and feared. Facebook polarises Internet users; they view Apple second-most critically.

Duisburg. He who knows the costs need not have fear of Google... Half a year ago, Michael Puetter established a calculator with which one can calculate the breakeven point for distribution costs through Google's Hotel Finder. This mathematic model should aid the hotelier in developing a sense of the conversion rates of Hotel Finder and, if necessary, changing their online strategy. His summary after 1,600 clicks on the calculator and many conversations: "The uncertainty in the industry is great and likewise with the worry that Hotel Finder will turn everything upside down by tomorrow," says the Managing Director of Puetter GmbH, a service provider from Duisburg for eCommerce services.

Augsburg. Google loves to make a noise, but the company generally does not happily provide the concrete. Less than ever with the hotel industry that the Internet giant quite obviously drives forward in the virtual world like a blind chicken. With the Google Hotel Finder – introduced in Germany in autumn 2011 – Google has now allied itself with the Online Travel Agencies and they are now both hunting for hotels together. However, many hoteliers are not at all aware of who and what they are financing with their commissions … hospitalityInside.com wished to question the Hotel Finder model, placed 11 professional questions to Google and received 11 ultra-scanty and partially generalised or elusive answers in return from Christian Baerwind, Industry Head Travel at Google Germany. The longest answer consisted of three sentences. You will find again this, dear readers, in full length and in the original wording in the following interview. Because a professional medium is there to create transparency, we asked distribution expert Bruno Wolf, HHC Consulting in Frankfurt and the online-savvy hotelier Marco Nussbaum, CEO prizeotel, to comment on the scanty Google answers. They found sufficient words to analyse the activities of the giant – and to reproach the industry with their mistakes in parallel.

Munich. Now Accor has tied all of its brands, including ibis Budget, to HRS.