| Booking volumes with substantial growth of 18.8% to Euro 102.7 million in second quarter of 2010 | |||||
Nuremberg, 06 July 2010 – Nuremberg, 6 July 2010* – Booking volumes at hotel.de AG showed sustainably positive developments in the second quarter of 2010 as well, rising 18.8% year-on-year from Euro 86.4 million to Euro 102.7 million. “The economic recovery has led to a revival in our corporate travel and international booking customer businesses in particular”, commented Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG. “Together with the ongoing investments we are making in new customer acquisitions, especially abroad, these were the key drivers for our pleasing second-quarter results. We will continue to make every effort to maintain this positive performance and thus to regain our pre-crisis growth rates” Disproportionate growth in international booking volumes International booking volumes, significantly affected by the impact of the crisis in the previous year, showed disproportionate growth of 23.4% to Euro 46.3 million. Of the company’s core foreign markets, France posted the strongest performance, with growth of 49.6%. Having said this, double-digit rates were also reported by the UK (+16.9%), Spain (+29.4%) and Italy (+23.3%). Domestic booking volumes improved 15.3% to Euro 56.4 million. The conference business contributed Euro 1.8 million to booking volumes (Q2 2009: Euro 2.4 million). Rise in number of bookings and average volume per booking The number of bookings rose 14.3% from 452,903 to 517,461. The higher rate of booking volume growth shows that the average volume per booking has also increased. This figure benefited from a higher average length of stay in the international business in particular. Remarks Dr. Raufer: “The international business generated around a third of the total number of bookings in the second quarter, yet already accounted for virtually half of our booking volumes. This was due to the fact that individual international bookings were around 60% higher on average.” Net commissionable checkout volumes, the key figure depicting the volume of accommodation eligible for invoicing in the period under report, will continue to benefit from the recovery in booking volumes in the coming months as well. After all, the booking volume growth in the second quarter of 2010 – the company’s incoming orders for the period as it were – on the one hand boosts the number and volume of commissionable checkouts in the period under report, while also impacting on the following period, given that some of the bookings made in the quarter under report only result in checkouts in the subsequent quarter. Net commissionable checkout volumes already rose 9% in June 2010. The figure for the second quarter as a whole grew 5.3% from Euro 79.8 million to Euro 84.0 million. Further increase in hotel commission margin in second quarter as well What’s more, hotel.de also achieved a year-on-year increase in its average hotel commission margin. Dr. Raufer: “Compared with the previous year’s period we have already managed to raise our margin from 11.0% to its current level of around 11.5%. As the year progresses, the margin should rise to 12.0% on average. This process will be assisted by concluding numerous new contracts with foreign hotels, including many in the high-margin Southern European market, as well as by our Top Ranking process, in which hotels bid for the best listings with increased commission rates. We are nevertheless still the best-priced provider in the market.” * The booking figures quoted here correspond to the data query status on 01.07.2010. Retrospective cancellations lead to a corresponding reduction in booking totals. hotel.de AG hotel.de AG, with its international brand hotel.info, operates a free hotel reservation service for companies and private customers at www.hotel.de and www.hotel.info. The company offers more than 210,000 hotels worldwide for booking online. Customers benefit in this respect from considerable cost savings. hotel.de shows all available room rates for each hotel, thus always enabling customers to select the lowest or most appropriate rate. All bookings are forward simultaneously, securely and directly to the individual hotel. This is guaranteed by the unique integration of hotels’ own reservation systems (so-called CRS and PMS systems) and hotel.de’s own myRES reservation system under hotel.de’s standard user surface. hotel.de’s corporate application is already used by well-known companies, such as BASF, SAP AG, Texas Instruments and Ernst & Young AG. Since January 2007, hotel.de has extended its portfolio to include a conference enquiries and booking system. Business customers in particular stand to save time and money due to the optimised conference organisation processes facilitated by this conference tool. hotel.info hotel.info – the international brand of hotel.de AG – was created to promote the company’s expansion into international markets. To acquire new customers and hotels abroad, sales offices have already been opened in the UK (London), France (Paris), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Rome) and China (Shanghai). The company’s high share of business customers with international operations facilitates its entry into new markets. The aim is to establish hotel.info as the leading online hotel reservation service for business and private customers in the foreign markets mentioned and then step by step across the whole of Europe. |
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