| hotel.de reports successful start to new financial year | |||||
|
|||||
Nuremberg, 18 May 2010 – hotel.de AG has emerged from the economic crisis in robust shape and can report sales growth of Euro 0.52 million from Euro 6.94 million to Euro 7.46 million in the first quarter of 2010. This growth was driven on the one hand by the recovery in private and business customer travel volumes, and on the other by ongoing marketing and sales measures in conjunction with a higher rate of new customer totals. The international business contributed Euro 2.95 million to total sales (previous year: Euro 2.59 million), as a result of which the international share of sales rose to 39.5% (previous year: 37.4%). Sales in Germany grew from Euro 4.35 million to Euro 4.52 million. This increase in sales volumes and the cost-cutting measures introduced impacted positively on the company’s earnings performance. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) improved year-on-year by Euro 0.38 million from Euro -1.17 million to Euro -0.79 million in the first quarter of 2010. Net income for the period amounted to Euro -0.60 million (previous year: Euro -1.04 million). The company’s consistent investment in its international expansion burdened quarterly earnings to the tune of Euro 1.00 million. Outlook The climate in the sector has improved significantly compared with the previous year. The business travel segment in particular has benefited from the gradual economic recovery. Due to increased cost pressure, companies will nevertheless continue to look at their cost structures very closely in future and opt for less expensive booking and travel solutions. Here, cost-saving online booking systems are also playing an ever more important role. “Our corporate customer business showed a very pleasing start to the year. We are seeing ever greater interest in inexpensive online solutions. Here, we have also been able to access increasing numbers of interested medium-sized companies and large well-known players that were not open to our products before the crisis. We expect this to impact positively on our booking volumes in the coming months”, commented Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG. The company also expects the launch of its “Hotelcenter” to generate positive momentum for its international business in the coming months. Here, hotels from all round the world can register themselves easily, conveniently and quickly on hotel.de, input the relevant hotel information at their own initiative and thus make themselves directly available for bookings via www.hotel.de and www.hotel.info. This way, hotel.de is laying a foundation to improve the range of hotels it offers at international destinations. With targeted advertising, this should lead to higher booking rates and increased commission revenues. Furthermore, sales and earnings for the 2010 financial year as a whole should benefit from the planned increase in the hotel commission margin from its current average of around 11.1% to an average of around 12.0%. hotel.de will nevertheless still be the least expensive provider on the market. Against this backdrop, the Management Board has confirmed its sales and earnings forecast for the overall 2010 financial year. “The first quarter is traditionally our weakest period,” remarked Dr. Raufer. “However, the measures we have taken to enhance our sales and our efficiency will enable us to consistently improve our key figures in the coming months. For 2010 as a whole, we therefore still expect to generate sales growth in a low double-digit percentage range and operating earnings slightly in excess of the previous year’s figure.” The extensive quarterly report is available for downloading from the Investor Relations section of the company’s homepage at www.hotel.de. 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. |
|||||
| |
|||||
| Press Contact: | |||||
|