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Booking volumes rise in fourth quarter; noticeable revival in international business
hotel.de AG, one of the leading worldwide online hotel reservation services, can report positive developments in its booking volumes for the fourth quarter of 2009. The initial trend towards recovery already seen in the domestic business in the third quarter was followed by a recovery in the international business as well in the fourth quarter. Overall booking volumes for the period from October to December 2009 increased slightly to Euro 82.7 million, as against Euro 82.2 million in the previous year’s period. At Euro 48.7 million, domestic booking volumes were at the same level as in the previous year (Q4 2008: Euro 48.8 million), while international booking volumes improved by 1.8% from Euro 33.4 million to Euro 34.0 million. As in the previous quarter, this positive performance was driven in particular by developments in France (+25.9% on previous year’s period) and Spain (+8.0% on previous year’s period). Booking volumes in the conference business segment amounted to Euro 1.6 million in the fourth quarter.
“The latest rise in booking volumes affirms the turnaround already apparent since the third quarter. Although we were unable to match the growth seen in past years in the difficult overall 2009 financial year, we nevertheless succeeded in offsetting the negative implications of the economic crisis, such as the decline in business travel volumes and lower room prices, not least by consistently implementing our marketing and sales campaign”, commented Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG.
Rise in number of bookings in fourth quarter
The number of bookings grew year-on-year by 4.6% from 424,664 to 443,984 in the fourth quarter of 2009. Bookings in the international business totalled 140,206 and thus even improved by 7.8% compared with the equivalent quarter in the previous year. “This was chiefly due to the stepping up of our new customer acquisition activities and increasing visibility abroad”, added Dr. Raufer. The lower growth shown by booking volumes compared with the number of bookings was chiefly due to the sharp reduction in hotel room prices and the lower average length of stay per booking.
* The booking figures quoted here correspond to the data query status on 07.01.2010. Retrospective cancellations lead to a corresponding reduction in booking totals.
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