hotel.de AG nominated for the prize "Entrepreneur of the Year 2004"
Nominating hotel.de as one of the finalists in the category "start-up" Ernst & Young recognizes hotel.de's entrepreneurial performance. The award ceremony will take place on September 23 in the "Alte Oper Frankfurt".
Nuremberg, Sept. 21, 2004 - This year 300 applications have been submitted for the competition "Entrepreneur of the Year" which is conducted by the audit firm Ernst & Young. Only a few companies of these have been nominated into the final round after having been interviewed and analyzed thoroughly.
hotel.de is a leading online hotel reservation service. Via hotel.de customers book about 130.000 hotels worldwide as well as hotel package offers at discount room rates. Hotels benefit from hotel.de as an additional high coverage sales channel distributing their offers and specials to the right target groups.
hotel.de is the only hotel reservation service to unite all the major central hotel booking engines (such as Pegasus, WorldRes, Trust) as well as its own reservation system myRES under one user interface. For hotel.de customers, the specific advantage of this integration is that all room contingents and rates of the above-mentioned systems will be checked for real-time availability and accuracy. The best rate of an individual hotel will be displayed, thus putting the hotel.de customer into the position to book the lowest rate available in nearly all locations and at any time. The numerous hotel package offers designed especially for hotel.de customers are also unique in character.
hotel.de is operated by the German company hotel.de AG and has offices in both Hamm and Nuremberg. Between April 1998 and October 2001, hotel.de was a joint venture between Atrada Trading Network AG and the hotel marketeer Intergerma GmbH & Co. Established as an independent company in 2001, hotel.de has been extending its online content very successfully since that time and is today a leading hotel reservation service.
Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG is pleased with this nomination: "This top-class nomination is acknowledging our work and the path we have been proceeding. The entire team is proud of this nomination and will continue to work hard on hotel.de's further expansion. In particular we are glad to have proven that there are still very innovative and successful start-up companies in Germany."
An independent jury of experts will now determine the winner of each of the five categories Industry, Trade, Service, Information Technology and Start-up. On September 23, 2004 the winners will be announced in the "Alte Oper Frankfurt".
Press Contact:
Wolfgang Glauner
Entrepreneur des Jahres e.V.
(Entrepreneur of the Year)
c/o Ernst & Young AG
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
Mittlerer Pfad 15
70499 Stuttgart
Germany
Tel.: +49 (711) 988 5800
Fax: +49 (711) 988 5781
Email: entrepreneur-des-jahres@de.ey.com
