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• hotel.de to become market leader for online meeting and conference hotel reservations by taking over intergerma's conference business Nuremberg, 08 February 2007 - hotel.de, one of the leading online reservation services for hotels worldwide, has taken over the online booking system as well as the customer and hotel database of intergerma Marketing GmbH & Co KG, Hamm, Germany, as of January, 1- 2007. This takeover will make hotel.de the leading online service for the reservation of conference hotels. In comparison with its current business model, in this segment hotel.de will not only offer individual overnight stays, but also conference packages, comprising of catering and technical equipment, as well as the corresponding facilities. The average value of conference bookings is 15 times as high as is with individual hotel reservations. The low purchase price, which the parties have agreed to keep private, measures strongly according to the economic success of this business segment of the coming four years, thus minimizing the entrepreneurial risk correspondingly. The margin of the new hotel.de business area is expected to amount to approx. 20% already within the first year. The profit potential for the years to come is estimated twice as high. Moreover hotel.de has succeeded in taking over six intergerma professionals securing additional know-how for hotel.de. In the future corporate customers will be able to use hotel.de free of charge, not only for individual hotel bookings going along with typical business trips, but also for the reservation of conferences. This will enable them to save considerable time and money also within this area, while hotel.de partner hotels may generate high conference turnover. This acquisition of intergerma will let hotel.de benefit from comprehensive synergetic effects and profit double: Through its 500,000 existing corporate accounts hotel.de can generate a high volume of conference bookings. Additionally with intergerma's customer base - comprising of numerous renowned large corporations - hotel.de acquires considerable additional turnover as well as customer potential for classical individual hotel reservations. According to a study of ghh consult GmH on the German conference and congress market 2005/2006, in Germany alone approx. 88 million conference delegates produced a total turnover of around 54 billion Euros in 2005. The resulting 74 million overnight stays correspond to 37% of the overall lodging volume within Germany's hotel industry. For Europe the fivefold volume is expected. Overall, hotel.de expects the profitable conference market to deliver a high chance for growth and profit over the next years. hotel.de hotel.de AG, based in Hamm und Nürnberg(Germany), in London (UK) and Paris (France) runs a free of charge hotel reservation service for companies and private users on www.hotel.de, TravelRes.com, www.hotel.at and www.hotel.ch. hotel.de AG offers 180.000 hotels throughout the world to be booked online. In 2007 hotel.de has extended its business model by the strongly growing business segment of conference hotel bookings through corporate customers. Compared to other booking channels, hotel.de customers benefit from considerable cost savings. These partially result from the very low hotel rates which hotel.de is able to negotiate with hotels thanks to its high booking volume. Additionally, hotel.de always displays all rates available for every single hotel (e.g. promotional rates, corporate or weekend rates), so that the customer can choose the lowest or best-fitting rate. Another major advantage of hotel.de is the fact that booking confirmations are sent right into the hotel's computer - making a reservation fast, safe and reliable. This is enabled by hotel.de's unique integration of the hotels' central reservation systems (so-called CRS) under one consistent user surface. Well-known companies, such as Wella AG (subsidiary of Procter & Gamble), SAP AG, ThyssenKrupp AG, degussa AG, Logica CMG GmbH, Ernst & Young AG, Wal-Mart, Texas Instruments Inc., Deutsche Börse Group, Munich Re Group and others already use the hotel.de corporate application. intergerma Marketing GmbH & Co. KG intergerma has established itself on the conference market as a leading publisher of the most commonly used conference planner "Hotels and Conference Facilities in Germany" as well as the publication "Event Locations". In addition to distributing print catalogues on conference hotels, in 2003 intergerma has developed an online system for conference hotels as a transparent and neutral information and booking platform for corporations and conference organizers. intergerma will focus on print media and expand its consulting services towards the hotel industry. intergerma as the biggest individual shareholder holds 16% of the hotel.de shares and two seats of the supervisory board at the same time. |
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