News & Stories

Nuremberg. The IHA industry report 2010 "Hotelmarkt Deutschland" confirms: Hotel portals book most of the guests in Germany. Nearly every fourth hotel booking is carried out via internet portals.

Bremen. Thirteen small logos adorn the prizeotel website forming an impressive bookmark. The logos represent 13 channels through which the one-year-old budget design hotel in Bremen communicates with its friends and guests and ultimately generates bookings. Managing Director, Marco Nussbaum considered online distribution and social media in the conception of the 2-star hotel. He will terminate the agreement with the last classic distribution partner in summer of this year. The marketing and distribution policy of the 127-room private hotel in Bremen is crystal clear and unimposing. The founder of prizeotel explains the policy in detail in this article. Marco Nussbaum prefers to move in the web community than to chase guests on the golf course. "The hotel industry should say goodbye to its hybrid target group orientation and any attempt to utilise all possible distribution channels. Only this way will it be possible to regain sovereignty over rates and their own content!" he says. And he does exactly this.

Munich. Social media have been the subject of much hype and have given rise to many new and open questions, not only for those working in the hospitality industry. In many other sectors too, social media are making inroads. Like all business transformation processes, Web 2.0 has increasingly become the subject of questioning with respect to benefit and return on investment. For lack of concrete figures, the public discussion often focuses strongly on beliefs, opinions and claims. Are social media then just for school children, students and people with too much free time on their hands? Or do they provide special benefits for the hotel industry with an opportunity for increasing revenues, profits and guests?

Brussels. A new idea is helping to increase occupancy and revenues: Rent day rooms! Now, they have their own online booking platform.The first large chains are already on board.

Salzburg. For the first time, the internet platform Tiscover has presented its "online tourism trends" for Austria's current winter season. Already, 800,000 Austrians book at least a part of their holiday/trip on the internet. Over the past three years, the share of Austrians doing so has doubled. Tiscover is owned by the German online company, HRS.

Hamburg. The amount of available user generated content and product reviews has grown rapidly in the internet. There are countless user generated reviews about digital cameras and resort hotels, as well as about brands, products and services. Those, who regard this exchange of user opinions as a private chit-chat of a small user group, are mistaken. This is revealed by a current study.

Munich. For one year now, TrustYou has been the first and only real meta search engine for the hospitality industry on the Internet, as reported last week in the first part of this article. TrustYou throws together hotel recommendations all over the world within only a few seconds helping guests to get an overview in a short period of time. Simultaneously, the portal provides hoteliers with an overview of their online reputation. The detailed analyses can be used as benchmarks in order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of hotels compared to the competition. Today's focus: the reputation management tool for hoteliers.

Munich. This year, the first and only real meta search engine for the hotel industry has been launched in the web: TrustYou. Today, after several re-launches, TrustYou is able to provide internet users with hotel recommendations all over the world within a few seconds; these recommendations originate from statements and reviews of other hotel guests on different websites. The system is able to provide this information due to its "semantic search technology". At the same time, the portal gives the hotel managers an overview about their online reputations. They are able to use detailed analyses as benchmarks in order to see their hotels' strengths and weaknesses in the competition.

Southlake. Travellers young and old are increasingly using mobile devices for flight notification, check in, seat selection, and for viewing hotel locations. A global survey also reveals: Surprisingly, Europeans rank ahead of North Americans in adopting newer features.

New York/Silver Springs. The recent severe conflict is terminated: Choice Hotels International and the online travel company Expedia signed a new three-year agreement to include Choice properties on the more than 80 Expedia and Hotels.com-branded sites that Expedia operates worldwide.