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Thanks to its strong market position in Germany and abroad, hotel.de AG, one of the leading global online hotel reservation services, has reported double-digit growth rates in its booking volumes for the fourth quarter as well. In addition to that, according to a study undertaken by Nielsen Netratings, hotel.de is once again the hotel reservation service with the highest degree of coverage in Germany.
In the period from October to December, hotel.de increased its booking volumes to Euro 86.5 million, up by 10.7% on the 4th quarter of 2007 (Euro 78.1m). Booking volumes, a good indicator of future commission revenues, and thus of sales growth, rose in Germany alone by 14.3% to Euro 50.3 million (Q4 2007: Euro 44.0m). The company thus clearly outperformed its sector, where business travel has fallen by 20% in some regions due to the economic crisis. Booking volumes also continue to rise in the international business, where hotel.de reported growth from Euro 34.2 million in the 4th quarter of 2007 to Euro 36.2 million between October and December 2008.
"The pace of growth may have slowed in the 4th quarter, traditionally a weaker period, but our strong market position and tangible sales success, especially abroad, have enabled us to maintain our growth course in spite of the difficult market climate", commented Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG. Thanks to high acceptance levels for its international brand www.hotel.info, as well as to successful sales activities on location, the company thus achieved year-on-year growth of 118.7% in international booking volumes in its French private and business customer sector. Significant growth rates have also been noted in reservations made by hotel.info booking customers in the UK and Italy. The 2008 financial year as a whole was therefore characterised once again by positive developments. Taken together, the domestic and international businesses of the hotel.de Group reported growth of around 30% in commissionable net checkout volumes.
hotel.de’s strong market position is reflected not only in its comparatively good business performance figures. According to a study undertaken by the well-known market research company Nielsen Netratings, hotel.de is one of the top ten most popular travel sites in Germany, alongside companies such as bahn.de, lufthansa.de and tui.de. Based on October figures, hotel.de is once again the hotel reservation service with the greatest coverage. "Compared with the Nielsen assessment in the summer of 2008, we have even improved our position from rank nine to six", added Raufer with regard to the company’s pleasing ranking. The Management Board expects customer totals to continue to rise in future as well. Economic developments mean that companies will be increasingly on the lookout for potential business travel savings. Free online reservation portals in particular, such as hotel.de, offer considerable time savings and significant price benefits compared with traditional booking channels.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
