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As a direct response to the spread of COVID-19 and the terrible impact it has had on our sector, earlier this year we launched our very own Safe2Stay distribution filter category – which allows you to list details about your property’s health &amp; safety prevention measures and official certifications.

We are now very pleased to confirm that over 60,000 of you around the world are already displaying information about your property via the Safe2Stay filter, and that this number is growing rapidly!

Providing people with assurance about safety whilst travelling is a top priority right now for the whole industry and the filter works by grouping together both hotel chains’ certifications and the certifications and protocols issued by public authorities, tourism boards or other Institutions.

Additionally we are also working hard to ensure that measures are being taken with our supplier partners across all product lines, including transfers and activities.

All of you working with Hotelbeds that have created your own COVID-19 health and safety protocols are eligible to include information in the filter category and hotels partners can do so directly via MaxiRoom, Hotelbeds’ partner extranet.

Global health and safety certifications from hotel chain partners such as Accor, Radisson, Hyatt and RIU Hotels and Resorts, as well as organizations such as the American Hotel &amp; Lodging Association and Turismo de Portugal, are displayed in the Safe2Stay filter category alongside those of many other companies and institutions.

To find out more information speak with your normal Hotelbeds contact today!


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Over 60,000 hotels now using Safe2Stay!

Recently we announced a new strategic agreement with Choice Hotels International, one of the world’s largest lodging franchisors, that recognizes Hotelbeds as a&nbsp;Preferred Wholesaler. 

This means that you will gain exclusive access to the best rates and deals at participating Choice Hotels locations worldwide!

Commenting on the news, Robert McDowell, Chief Commercial Officer at Choice Hotels said:&nbsp;“We are very excited to expand our long-standing relationship with Hotelbeds Group through this strategic agreement. It not only provides incremental revenue stream opportunities and international exposure for our U.S. franchisees, but also strengthens confidence in Hotelbeds’ valuable wholesale distribution model. Choice Hotels is committed to maintaining rate integrity across all channels, while working to reduce the cost of distribution for franchisees. We believe this agreement improves our ability to achieve this long term, especially in key international source markets.”

And Mark Redmond, our Head of Global Chains, added: “We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with Choice Hotels and grow our mutual business together.&nbsp; This will be a strong relationship delivering special rates and availability across the Choice Hotel portfolio to our 60,000 plus travel distribution clients, while giving Choice Hotels access to a higher-margin, non-domestic niche segment of the travel market.”

Watch this space for more news about exclusive deals with the world’s leading hotel chains. 


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Preferred Wholesaler agreement gives you exclusive access to Choice Hotels

As part of our commitment to innovate continually and provide you with the best possible technology solutions, we have recently appointed Simon Matthews as Global Director for Technology &amp; Product Management.

Simon joins us from GVC Holdings, where he was Chief Technology Officer (CTO), developing end-to-end technology stacks for sports betting brands, including Ladbrokes Coral Group.

He will take on a newly combined role leading both the Technology and the Product Management areas of Hotelbeds, as well as becoming a member of our Executive Committee.

His career spans more than two decades and includes the roles of Head of Software Engineering for Sky and CTO for Cerillion Technologies, a company specialising in enterprise on-premise, mobile, and SaaS software for multiple sectors including telecommunications, media, energy, and financial services.

Commenting on the news our Managing Director, Carlos Muñoz, stated: "It gives me great pleasure to confirm that Simon Matthews will be joining us as our Global Director for Technology &amp; Product Management. Both areas have always been at the heart of our company thanks to our expertise in driving innovation, improving efficiency and developing leading edge platforms and processes that have contributed to Hotelbeds becoming the world’s leading bedbank.

“As we continue to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry, getting used to operating in a much more competitive market-place than ever before, it is vital that we invest in cutting edge Technology &amp; Product Management to lead the way,&nbsp;and Simon’s considerable experience in a variety of leading technology roles made him the perfect candidate.”

Whilst Simon himself&nbsp;added: "It’s a real honour to be joining Hotelbeds to lead the Technology and Product Management areas. Together with my new team I look forward to delivering even greater value to all our partners everywhere in this currently challenging environment and help them recover as fast as possible. We´ll be able to achieve that by driving forward relentlessly to become more competitive, efficient and even more innovative.”

To find out more about our approach to innovation speak with your usual Hotelbeds contact today!


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Appointment of Global Director for Technology & Product Management

We are proud to announce that we are partnering with Geneva Tourism Board&nbsp;to educate travel trade partners and drive incremental tourism arrivals to the city!
Already we are busy working with Geneva Tourism Board on recovery efforts through till the end of October.
What does this mean for you as a travel buyer? We are leveraging our contracting team in Geneva to gain access for you and your customers to special promotional rates and exclusive deals on hotels and activities in Geneva.&nbsp;Additionally we´ll be launching a dedicated Geneva landing page so that you can easily access the best deals and we´ll also host a dedicated webinar promoting the destination. Watch this space! 

Speaking about the partnership, Jonathan Robin, Director Markets &amp; Leisure - Geneva Tourism &amp; Conventions Foundation&nbsp;said: “With the COVID-19 pandemic we immediately saw the need to adjust our marketing and sales strategy. That´s why we launched our Recovery campaign and we recognized that we needed a B2B partner like Hotelbeds to drive travel trade bookings to the destination once travel was permitted again. We are confident that Hotelbeds, being a key player in the market, can help our city of Geneva to reclaim some of the lost opportunities for the summer season by providing us with high-value guests with above average total spend.”

Meanwhile Gareth Matthews, Marketing and Communications Director at Hotelbeds&nbsp;added: “We are delighted to partner with Geneva Tourism Board. We have developed a comprehensive recovery campaign for Geneva Tourism Board focusing on the most relevant source markets in Europe for the upcoming months. We look forward to driving high-value, incremental bookings to the city that will boost not only room nights but revenue performance too.”

Benefiting from the company’s technology, booking platform, and relationships with hoteliers and B2B travel buyers globally, Hotelbeds has to date already worked with over 50 tourism boards from around the world.

Ask your usual Hotelbeds contact today for more information on other destinations around the world that we´re working with for similar campaigns.


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Recovery campaign offers you exclusive deals for Geneva

To support your recovery in late July we launched a new tool called The Compass for our web clients.&nbsp;

One very important aspect of this powerful tool is its ability to provide you with live data insights on which are the top trending destinations for your particular source market. 

Here is what you need to know right now about the most in-demand destinations: 


	In Europe the top five most popular choices in order of demand are: the Algarve, Antalya, Crete, Tenerife, Marmaris – with an average lead time of one to seven days. That´s right, we´re seeing the traditional Spanish and Greek destinations falling in demand. More encouragingly we´re seeing a pick-up in lead time bookings of six months plus from Germany, France and the UK. 
	Meanwhile in Dubai and Saudi Arabia around half the bookings have lead times of one to seven days and the most popular are for Dubai, Istanbul and Abu Dhabi (in descending order). 
	Whilst in APAC we are seeing:
	
		Strong trend for domestic travel in both Australia and New Zealand, where the top five destinations in descending order are Darwin and surrounding areas, Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, and Brisbane – all with lead times of one to seven days and up to three months. 
		In China the top trending domestic destinations are Shanghai and Beijing (Peking), again with lead times of one to seven days. 
		And in Japan the top trending domestic destination is Sapporo, with a lead time of one to three months. Encouragingly, San Diego (California) is a trending long haul destination with a lead time of plus six months for Japanese travellers.
	
	
	In the USA and Canada, 40% of bookings are for a lead time of one to seven days and there´s a strong preference for domestic destinations, with the top five (in descending order) being: Las Vegas, the Orlando Area, Los Angeles, Miami Area and Chicago. 
	And last but not least, in Latin America around 35% of bookings are for travel in the next three to six months, rising to even plus six months in Mexico and Colombia. The top five destinations for the region are Cancun, the Riviera Maya, Punta Cana, Puerto Vallarta and Dubai.



If you want to stay ahead of the changing market you can check right now the destination trends for your source market: click here (https://client.hotelbeds.com/compass) 

In addition to providing you with destination trends and lead times, The Compass also offers you a selection of the top properties available and features the very best rates and conditions.&nbsp;

Plus, The Compass also equips users with powerful marketing capabilities that enable you to automatically create personalised, branded promotional campaigns with your own selection of hotels that you can then directly target to customers via email, WhatsApp or other channels. 

You can access The Compass at no additional cost simply by logging-in to our website as normal – and if you have any issues logging-in simply contact your KAM and they´ll resolve this right away.


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Exclusive insight on trending destinations!

The successful upgrade of our Customer Call Centre began late last year and involved migrating all existing services onto a new cloud-based Salesforce contact centre solution platform, managed by Vonage (previously known as New Voice Media).

&nbsp;

As a result of this, our Contact Centre – which provides customer support for the Hotelbeds and Bedsonline brands, plus the Beyond the Bed portfolio – will now operate on a single unified platform and will offer you:

&nbsp;


	Greater call stability
	Improved audio quality
	Almost complete elimination of dropped calls
	Full integration with Hotelbeds’ CRM system, meaning that we&nbsp; will automatically access your details on receiving a call
	Improved call answer times and increased call answer rates
	Cost savings for you via offering local rate telephone numbers.
	&nbsp;


Commenting on the successful migration, our Global Operations Director, Marc Albert said: 

&nbsp;

“Whilst this had been scheduled for some time, clearly it couldn’t have come at a more important moment due to the unexpected challenges of COVID-19.

&nbsp;

“Therefore I’m very proud to confirm that the improved response times, CRM integration and overall greater call quality introduced by this upgrade has meant that we have been able to maintain our high-standard of customer service, despite seeing very significant spikes in volumes of calls during recent months.

&nbsp;

“On behalf of all my senior colleagues I would like to congratulate all those involved in this successful migration and thank them for their hard work. This is yet another great example to our partners of how we support them!”


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Upgrading our Customer Call Centre

As part of our commitment to you, we have launched a combined set of self-service tools called SelfSeT to simplify how you work with us.

Within this SelfSet initiative we have already launched two new tools across the great majority of our global markets, allowing clients to:

•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Meet Bedsy, our new virtual assistant chatbot for Hotelbeds clients that updates you on active bookings and can even provide &nbsp;supplier confirmation number. With Bedsy, we can point you in the right direction for many of your day-to-day booking queries!
•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Consult with us via LiveChat: although Bedsy can answer most questions, you might still need to speak with us for more complex requests. This is where our LiveChat service comes in: the instant-messaging tool connects you with our experts and saves you having to contact us by telephone. &nbsp;


Other tools will come soon, watch this space!


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Chatbot and LiveChat launch

Hotelbeds, the world’s leading bedbank, has entered into a strategic partnership with Louvre Hotels Group, a major player in the global hospitality industry.

This agreement will further strengthen Louvre’s distribution reach via Hotelbeds’ network of over 60,000 travel trade buyers in 140 source markets, including airlines, points redemption schemes, retail travel agents and tour operators.

At the same time, Hotelbeds’ customers will gain access to preferential rates and availability from across Louvre Hotels Group’s portfolio of over 1,500 hotels in 54 countries worldwide, representing over 100,000 available rooms.

Hotelbeds’ travel trade buying partners will have access to the complete portfolio of six Louvre brands ranging from one to five stars properties, including: Première Classe, Campanile, Kyriad, Kyriad Direct, Tulip Inn, Golden Tulip and Royal Tulip.

Meanwhile Hotelbeds’ portfolio of 60,000 travel buyers will offer Louvre Hotels Group a wider international reach and incremental bookings from end customers whose average profile means they typically book further in advance, pay more per room, stay for longer, have lower cancellation rates and spend more on property.&nbsp;

As part of this agreement, Louvre Hotels Group will distribute its hotel rooms through Hotelbeds’ two main sales channels: wholesale sales under the 'Hotelbeds' brand, and retail sales via the Bedsonline brand, that caters to retail travel agents.

Mark Redmond, Head of Global Chains at Hotelbeds commented: “We are delighted to sign a preferred partnership with Louvre Hotels Group, a major player in the global hospitality industry with a great portfolio that includes 1,500 hotels in 54 countries – and over 100,000 rooms available. They have a full hotel offering, spanning one to five star properties, with well known brands such as Première Classe, Kyriad, Campanile, Tulip Inn, Golden Tulip, and Royal Tulip. Now, as the current restrictions on travel begin to ease I am certain that our 60,000 travel trade clients will be very excited to gain access to special rates and availability across Louvre’s full portfolio.”

Olivier Daurat, VP Sales and Distribution at Louvre Hotels Group, added: “This alliance is very important for us as thanks to Hotelbeds we can have access to one of the largest travel trade distribution networks available, including both wholesale and retail buyers. We look forward to working with Hotelbeds to grow our overall bookings together and more importantly to generate incremental, high-value reservations once travel demand picks back up again.”

Louvre Hotels Group is owned by Jin Jiang International Holdings Co. Ltd., one of China’s leading travel and tourism conglomerates and the second largest hotel group in the world.

Moreover, since the outbreak of the pandemic, Louvre Hotels Group has launched the “Clean &amp; Safe” reassurance program and implemented preventive measures through its Charter of Commitment for its 1,500 hotels around the world. The group has put in place a specific training program for all staff to ensure full compliance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization, the Government, and Regional Health Agencies. As clients’ well-being and safety are Louvre’s top priorities, the group’s safety procedures are bring overseen by two health and safety protection experts, Mérieux Nutrisciences in France and NSF International worldwide.


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Hotelbeds signs new strategic partnership with Louvre Hotels Group

We are very pleased to confirm that our successful partnership with OYO Rooms has reached the 100,000 room nights booked milestone.

OYO Hotels &amp; Homes is the world’s 6th largest hotel chain and last April we announced a strategic global distribution partnership together. The preferred agreement represented OYO’s first-ever distribution partnership with a bedbank.

We can also now confirm that by the end of this year we´ll have the full OYO Rooms portfolio live in our system and long-term together aim to distribute 500,000 room nights annually.

To find out more about booking OYO´s portfolio speak with your Hotelbeds manager today!&nbsp;


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OYO Rooms passes 100k landmark!

Providing people with assurance about safety whilst travelling is a top priority right now for the whole industry.&nbsp;

Further to our announcement last month, we have now launched our new distribution filter category called Safe2Stay.

The filter provides details about each properties’ prevention measures and official certifications to fight against the spread of COVID-19 – and is available via both Hotelbeds and Bedsonline.&nbsp;

It works by grouping together both hotel chains certifications and the certifications and protocols issued by public authorities, tourism boards or other Institutions. We are also working hard to ensure that measures are being taken with our supplier partners across all product lines, including transfers and activities.

All partners working with Hotelbeds that have created their own COVID-19 health and safety protocols are eligible to include their information in the filter category and hotels partners can do so directly via MaxiRoom, Hotelbeds’ partner extranet. &nbsp;
Global health and safety certifications from hotel chain partners such as Accor, Radisson, Hyatt and RIU Hotels and Resorts, as well as organizations such as the American Hotel &amp; Lodging Association and Turismo de Portugal, will be displayed in the Safe2Stay filter category alongside those of many other companies and institutions.
To find out more information speak with your normal Hotelbeds contact today!&nbsp;


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Keeping travellers informed about safety

The current and sudden high level of demand for domestic travel from the world’s biggest source markets is now widely recognized.&nbsp;

But exactly where, when and how will this take place? Harnessing big data analytical capabilities, at Hotelbeds we have been able to closely compare the main corridors, lead time, and length of stay for each source market to more accurately predict the characteristics of the surge in demand for domestic stays.

Armed with this information we are planning to add 10,000 new properties to our global portfolio of hotels by the end of the year.&nbsp;

As a first wave the initiative will be implemented in &nbsp;the USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, with more countries to be included in the near future.

&nbsp;

Furthermore, we will build upon this increased demand for domestic travel by implementing several new initiatives, such as:


	Expanding our hotel portfolio in secondary destinations to include new leisure options that meet the needs of domestic travellers.&nbsp;
	Adding more property types to provide variety for these travellers, for example, resorts and rural hotels.&nbsp;
	Kick-starting the sector by helping customers book in confidence through increasing the availability of refundable rates.&nbsp;
	Reducing releases and minimum stay requirements to increase maximum availability for last-minute domestic travellers.&nbsp;
	Launching local marketing campaigns targeted at B2B travel buyers in these source markets to promote and secure availability for this summer season! &nbsp;


&nbsp;

Speaking about the plan, our Global Sales Director, León Herce said: &nbsp;“Following client feedback, and thanks to our own data analytics capabilities, we have detected not only the overall surge in domestic demand, but the requirement for more product in secondary destinations, across all different property types.”&nbsp;


&nbsp;“As you would expect, hoteliers in these destinations – many of them previously dependent on international markets that are unlikely to be travelling anytime soon – are very keen to capture the new domestic demand and we are working hard to sign them up fast.”
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Responding to domestic demand 

We have signed a preferred partnership deal with Radisson Hotel Group to enable them to distribute their portfolio of 1,100 hotels to our 60,000 B2B travel buyers such as tour operators, travel agents, airlines and points redemption schemes.

This also means that our customers are now able to access preferential rates and availability across Radisson Hotel Group’s portfolio, which includes the Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson and Country Inn &amp; Suites by Radisson brands.

Talking about the deal, our very own Mark Redmond, Head of Global Chains said: “Radisson Hotel Group is one of the world’s largest hotel groups and we are delighted to sign a preferred partnership with them. Once restrictions are removed and travel begins to start again, I am certain that our 60,000 B2B travel buying clients will be very excited about gaining access to special rates and availability for Radisson Hotel Group’s well-known brands such as Radisson Blu, Park Plaza or Park Inn by Radisson.”

Whilst Eric de Neef, EVP &amp; Global Chief Commercial Officer at Radisson Hotel Group, added: “Through the alliance with Hotelbeds we have access to a leading and strategically important B2B distribution network, including both wholesale and retail distribution worldwide through Bedsonline.

"As we start to re-boot, re-shape and re-boost the business after the peak of the crisis, we want to continuously extend our sales reach, and Hotelbeds is the right partner to achieve this. We look forward to working with Hotelbeds and to not only grow overall bookings together, but more importantly to grow incremental, high-value bookings.”
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