News & Stories

Washington (August 26, 2005). The Travel Partnership Corporation in Washington D. C. received the permission to operate the new top-level domain ".travel" in April this year. As of October, it will be possible to apply for domains with the new ending for the first time. But not everybody is able to have such a domain.

Washington. Marriott launched a new component on marriott.com to let American users buy plane tickets and rent cars - even if they don't want to book a hotel room. It will sell flights on 60 airlines, including all major carriers.

Linz. The consumer information of the Arbeiterkammer Oberoesterreich - the legal interest group of employees in Austria - has, among other things, taken a closer look at the hotel prices offered by the four internet providers hrs.de, hotel.de, ehotel.de and expedia.de. It discovered price differences of up to 123 percent.

Augsburg. The confusion about the "best price" is already settled in the hotel industry. The hotel online portals make it even more confusing: They sometimes add their own rating to the "best prices" of the hotel chains and thus change the order of the hotels in the listing. The customer is left carrying the can: he no longer understands anything.

Augsburg. Confusion has become an art form: "Best Price" seems clear enough, but in fact is not the best price. German hoteliers are getting worked up about a phenomenon that yet again proves that everyone does what he wants. Only the common spring board is called "best price".

Munich. Choice Hotels Europe is about to start a customer loyalty programme together with famous partners. The programme involves guests collecting telephone units.

Berlin. The exclusively German orientated internet apartment service www.apartmentservice.de will on 1 August launch into the international market with serviced apartments around the world.

Madrid. Amadeus is restructuring its hotel and leisure business and is replacing old faces with new ones. Distribution and technology services now belong together and are thus separated from the division "Travel Services and Leisure".

Southlake. Sabre Travel Network added 600 leisure hotels in Southern Europe to its portfolio and announced to expand the range of leisure products.

Cologne. On 4 July Germany's biggest travel provider Berge & Meer will launch their own holiday programme on the German news channel n-tv.