hotel.de: 9-month booking volumes already ahead of figure for entire previous year
Nürnberg, 07 October 2008* – hotel.de AG, one of the leading worldwide online hotel reservation services, generated booking volumes of Euro 317.6 million in the first 9 months of 2008. The company has thus already exceeded the equivalent figure for the previous year as a whole – an indication of its continuing strong growth momentum. At 45%, the international share of sales remained at a high level.
France beats expectations
Total booking volumes rose year-on-year by 43.9% from Euro 220.8 million to Euro 317.6 million between January and September. International reservations grew by 54.9% from Euro 94.1 million to Euro 145.7 million. The French market in particular outperformed expectations once again. “We boosted our booking volumes in France by almost 70%, both in the quarter under report and in the first nine months. We have acquired a large number of new booking customers in this market in recent weeks. Not only that, the other core European markets where we have outlets, the UK and Spain, also reported high rates of growth in new booking customers, especially in the business customers segment”, comments Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG.
The development in booking volumes also reflects the great success of the company’s strategy of focusing on high-volume business customers. With booking volumes of Euro 110.4 million, the third quarter was still the strongest this year (Q3 2007: Euro 81.9 million). Raufer, however, is also confident with regard to the quarter just started. “We already saw a slight shift in high booking volumes towards the fourth quarter in 2007. Following a strong performance in September, we therefore expect to see strong growth, especially in the months of October and November”.
hotel.de achieved further signifcant growth in commissionable net checkout volumes, a key figure that, unlike booking volumes, which provide an indication of future commission revenue, reflects commission income during the period under report. In the first nine months, commissionable net checkout volumes grew by 35.0% to Euro 259.4 million (Q1-Q3 2007: Euro 192.3 million). The international business, where this figure rose by 51.1% to Euro 120.7 million, also proved to be a key growth driver.
hotel.de acquires its one millionth corporate booking customer
The number of booking customers registered at hotel.de from among small, medium-sized and large companies rose to more than one million at the end of September. “By crossing the magic threshold of one million corporate booking customers, we have been able to increase the total number of our booking customers, including private customers, to around three million”, remarks Raufer enthusiastically. hotel.de has witnessed a sharp rise in the pace of growth in new corporate customer acquisition in recent months, especially in other countries, where the company acquired around 30,000 new corporate booking customers in the last quarter alone. “Our success abroad affirms our internationalisation strategy. We will therefore continue to focus on our expansion”, Raufer adds. The company plans to open an office in Italy before the end of the current quarter.
* The booking figures quoted here correspond to the data query status on 10.01.2008.
hotel.de AG
hotel.de AG with its international brand hotel.info runs a free of charge hotel reservation service for companies and private users on www.hotel.de and www.hotel.info. The company offers 210,000 hotels worldwide to be booked online. Since January 2007, hotel.de has also been offering conferences. Compared to other booking channels, customers benefit from considerable cost savings (on average 40% for business customers). Additionally, all available rates for every single hotel are always displayed, so that the customer can choose the lowest or best-fitting rate. Further, all bookings via hotel.de are sent right into the hotel’s computer - making a reservation fast, safe and reliable. This is enabled by hotel.de/TravelRes’ unique integration of the hotels' central reservation systems (so-called CRS) under one consistent user surface. Well-known companies, such as Procter & Gamble, SAP AG, Texas Instruments Inc. And Ernst & Young AG already use the hotel.de/TravelRes corporate application.
hotel.info
hotel.info is the international brand of hotel.de AG. This brand was established for pushing ahead its expansion into the European countries. In order to acquire customers and hotels abroad, offices in London, Paris and Barcelona have been set up, to be followed by other important countries. The strong customer loyalty and the high ratio of business customers facilitate hotel.info’s entry into the new markets as many foreign-based subsidiaries or parent enterprises of German companies contracted by hotel.de already have been using hotel.info. The aim is to establish hotel.info as the leading online hotel reservation service for business as well as private customers in the foreign markets mentioned and – step by step – in Europe as a whole.
