News & Stories

Augsburg. The purchase of the couponing portal, DailyDeal, by Google this week shows the immense dynamism in this market: DailyDeal had been founded only two years ago and today, counts more than 200 employees. Now both founders and co-investors will allegedly harvest between 150 and 200 million USD.

Innsbruck/Wiesbaden. Supported by the possibilities of the Internet, an increasing amount of voucher and coupon systems are flooding Europe. The boom is carried by the hunt for hefty discounts. Users can achieve real bargains with this, but once again, the hotelier seems to be the loser. In contrast, the coupon suppliers are registering huge growth figures. Nevertheless, the opinions about the sense or nonsense of these coupon portals are widely divided. A comparison of the supplier and market opinions.

Eichstaett. The company arose from a hobby - from an online diary. Five year's later, the Eichstaett Institute for eTourism, Tourismuszukunft - a trend office with social media focus - came into being. The institute advises tourism companies and provides 3 to 5-year forecasts. "We don't aim to ascertain megatrends for the next 20 years, but rather work within a closer timeframe. Developments in social media are very dynamic. In addition, many companies take their decisions over this timeframe," Florian Bauhuber says, one of three Managing Directors at the institute. Hotels are also among our clients, though the expert views this sector with some scepticism as far as vision and decision-making are concerned.

Augsburg. An attentive reader discovered the data leak – and informed hospitalityInside.com. Due to the change of an uncoded URL, we were able to see data of other people on our computers: addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses. The reason was "vulnerability within an interface". Luckily, there was no damage in this case; however, the dimension of such a case became clear: the website of the hotel group has been connected to SynXis – a Sabre subsidiary with more than 12,000 hotel customers. Where do you start looking for the cause if several parties are involved? Who is responsible for undertaking measures in order to prevent such incidents?

Southlake. On Tuesday, Sabre Holdings announced the acquisition of SoftHotel, the largest provider of web-based property management solutions for the hospitality industry.

Hamburg. The triumphal procession of Social Media seems unstoppable and Facebook is the main driver in the market. The next push will come via mobile devices. The tempo in the market is increasing regardless - driven by the activities of the users and consumers. The Hamburg market research company, Fittkau & Maass Consulting, specialists for interactive media, has compiled study results from two current reports about Social Media and the Internet as well as from a benchmarking of travel websites especially for hospitalityInside.com. Current figures and facts of a dynamic development.

Hamburg. Social Networks always serve first and foremost as a base for contact maintenance: 82% and respectively 28% of the Social Networkers indicate using "their" networks primarily for private and professional maintenance and closing contacts. However, does still time remain for this much-considered target group to notice their attention to the advertising of brands and companies in the Social Web?

Frankfurt. Today, every fourth reservation reaches the hotel online. However: Direct distribution is growing only slowly while reservations through online travel agents are exploding. With such developments, the experts initiated the "Pricing & Distribution Day" of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association two weeks ago to motivate the hoteliers toward the correct distribution mix. At the same time, they admonished the industry: "Stop strengthening the external distribution!" And: "Protect the Price Elevation!" Then the discussion over rate parity and zero commission showed how difficult it is to move the industry toward a uniform behaviour. The OTAs profit from this inhomogeneity.

Hamburg. The last border to the wide world of the shopping has fallen - smartphones, Tablet PCs & Co. are to thank. Shopping is not only possible at any time, but now also at any place. The owners of mobile devices capable of Internet value the independence from time and space, a study points out.

Frankfurt. The hotel industry is in the throes of understanding that it needs to regain sovereignty from online travel agencies and reservation portals in terms of rates and content. Hoteliers have paid enormous sums in the form of commissions to Expedia, booking.com, hotel.de, HRS and other providers in the past decade. Now, these portals are pushing the hotels’ own websites even further back in the Google hit lists. The consequence: hoteliers are losing another portion of their business. They have failed to understand the electronic distribution model to this day. As a result, they got a slap in the face last Monday: at the "Pricing & Distribution Day” staged by Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association in the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel, where competent speakers found crystal clear words. They spoke about parity of rates, content and products, fair distribution, distribution strategies and the spectre of Google. The discussion about Google alone revealed the fears of the industry. The experts countered: withdrawing is not the best defence, but attacking!