Cologne-based Hotel Reservation Service (HRS) opens a new chapter in its company history by presenting itself as a global hotel solutions provider from just being a hotel booking portal.
Complete with a new logo, HRS’ repositioning will see it emphasising the ongoing expansion of its products and services for corporate customers and expanding its global presence.
According to Tobias Ragge, CEO of HRS, the company is gradually expanding its activities abroad with focus on Asia and Eastern Europe. “But HRS will also expand its hotel portfolio and negotiate corporate discounts for business travellers in other important growth regions such as South America and India.”
HRS now also covers the entire value-added chain regarding hotel bookings, from hotel procurement, over booking transactions and innovative payment solutions to the transmission of relevant data.
Ragge said the hotel market is highly fragmented and complex, and companies need relevant data and individual solutions to optimise their travel management.
“With our decades of hotel market expertise and the large global hotel portfolio, HRS has extensive benchmark information of 40,000 corporate customers. On the basis of these data, we can optimally advice our customers and support travel executives to optimise their processes and to save costs,” he added
According to the VDR, about 26% of the travel budget in Germany account for accommodation costs. HRS said that to simplify the analysis of accommodation costs, it is providing companies with a high booking volume, free support with the procurement of accommodation services since 2012 through strategic partnerships.
It added that in the past year it negotiated more than two million room nights with about 15,000 hotels.
The company said in a press release that the negotiated rates could be reduced by an average of nine percent. Procurement and travel management profit from an operative discharge and savings in the process costs and at the same time, the hotels profit from a high number of room nights.
Requests for proposal and negotiations are supported by local purchasers in more than 50 markets and are conducted via a specially developed online-eRFP-platform, which also meets the standards of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). Response rate is more than 90%.
Using the innovative “Paperless Travel” solution all hotel expenses are centrally recorded and digitally processed in an organised digital way with room rate, breakfast and extra costs separately itemised and VAT amounts displayed on a single item basis. The processing in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and accounting systems are also acilitated, the single employee relieved and the error rate reduced.
The statement added this solution allows a generally accepted disclosure of VAT including the tax number of the provider and therefore a fast and straightforward refund of the VAT paid abroad on the hotel accommodation.
