14-06-05 New internetplatform for direct roomreservations at the hotel.

Amsterdam , 14 June 2005 – The first national internetplatform from where guests can book a room and/ or meetingaccomodation directly at the hotel was launched the 14 th of June. Till now the reservation process almost always went through a travel agent and therefore the travel agent receives a commission fee. The platform named hoteliers.com is supported by the industries branche organisation Koninklijk Horeca Nederland.

The platform shows all the contactdetails of the hotel, charge no fees to the guests and offers a totalpackage of roomreservations, packages and meetingaccomodation. Hotels pay a fixed membership per month instead of a commission per booking, therefore the hotels can be booked unlimited, the platform takes care of the marketingactivities. Because the hotel receives the reservations directly from the guests, without the interference of a third party, hoteliers.com can work with low costs and the hotelier can improve his profit margin or reduce the roomprice towards the consumer. The advantage for the consumer is the direct contact with the hotel of their choice.

An unique combination
The platform is introduced due to the fact that although the direct channel of internet, the traditional third party commissionmodel did not changed in the hospitality world. The remained a commission per booking although internet is a direct channel and offers many possibilities. Because new internetbookingsparties adopted the businessmodel of the traditional travel agencies the cost structure remained the same.

Time for a change according to the founders of this platform, two former students of the Hotelschool The Hague. In two years time the platform was developed and 50 hotels joined already in the pre-opening phase. In order to increase the number of hotels in The Netherlands hoteliers.com is cooperating with Koninklijk Horeca Nederland, over 95% of the Dutch hotels are member of this foundation. They were enthousiastic about the transparent model of hoteliers.com. Further details concerning this partnership is soon published at the website of Koninklijk Horeca Nederland (www.horeca.org).

<< back