8 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
8 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Aiming to Stay #1 in Hotelplanner.com CEO Tim Hentschel HotelPlanner.com was founded in 2002 by Tim Hentschel and John Prince, and has since achieved a global portfolio of 50,000 hotels. It is now the #1 seller of group travel online worldwide. The company opened European headquarters in London, in 2012, and this year’s visit to ITB Berlin by Hentschel and his team aims to build on HotelPlanner.com’s international expansion plans in the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and Russia. We asked him what his main goals are at the show. Tim Hentschel Hotelplanner.com CEO WE NOW HAVE OVER A MILLION EVENT PLANNERS USING ITS SITE TO BOOK GROUP HOTEL STAYS It’s to be with as many destinations as possible as this is the largest travel show in the world. I bring along an entire team and we have been doing this for the past three years, because while we’ve been big in the United States for the past 10 years, we’ve been expanding and recently set up our European headquarters in London. As we are doing more business in Europe, it’s important to have a big presence at ITB, so this year we are present with six people and we’re putting on a party for all of our top suppliers. How would you best describe what your company does? HotelPlanner.com specialises in providing planning, hotel sourcing and contract negotiations with hotels around the world. We provide group event and meeting planner services for all types of organisations from professional sport teams, colleges, universities, youth sports teams, corporations of all sizes, reunions, weddings and long term stay travel. HotelPlanner.com helps clients select the right property at the right price for their event. The company combines technology with a highly experienced staff of professional meeting planners to deliver outstanding service. You recently celebrated the ten-year anniversary of your company with an important announcement. What was this milestone? We now have over a million event planners using its site to book group hotel stays. This is due in part to the fact that we not only have great staff, but we are also leading the market in technology. The ease of use of the website has earned us top honours including the Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award by Celebration Media. In addition, we are continuing to improve the usability of our site by incorporating user feedback. How long do you stay at ITB Berlin? ITB BERLIN NEWS • Friday 7 th March 2014 www.itb-berlin-news.com
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 9 Global Group Travel Distribution says ITB Berlin is an essential element I arrive the night before the show starts, but I don’t stay for the last night, which is open to the general public. However my team does stay for the entire time, leaving late Sunday or Monday. What is the role and importance of ITB Berlin for you as a purchasing fair? It’s an essential trade event for us as we have to buy inventory from all over the world and it’s the fastest way for us to get in front of the largest number of people. It’s a great show… I can’t say enough good things about it! I like the destination too, because Berlin is very organised, it’s very easy to travel in and out and the prices are very reasonable considering how big the show is. What kinds of new products are you primarily seeking this year? We purchased meetings.com last year and so we are doing a lot more in the corporate space, for business executive and corporate travel so we will be looking for more of those kinds of products such as high-end corporate hotels and retreats. What volume of business do you do at ITB Berlin? We power all the main OTA’s for their group hotel requests. Our company processes 2000 group leads a day worldwide. Anything that’s 10 rooms or over on Expedia goes through groups.expedia.com, which is a partner of ours. Then Priceline has started groupdeals. com. Kayak for 9+ rooms links up to a co-branded site of ours, and so does last-minute.com. Travelocity is also one of our partners, so we are consolidating Hotelplanner.com, meetings.com and all those large OTA’s for group purchasing. What do you see as being the main trends at the moment, and what is your personal forecast for business for the upcoming year? Now I know I’m going to sound predictable, but social and mobile are the two biggest trends. There are more and more people going to mobile devices, whether it’s tablets or smartphones, and being competitive in that space throughout the entire process, not just searching and finding hotels, is essential. We are seeing that our app for meeting procurements is becoming very popular on Android and iPhone. Social is the other buzzword. Everybody is getting into blogging about their experience; what they expect from hotels, what they’ve gotten from hotels and what they want events to be like, and we have to be part of that conversation. Obviously we have to build more tools around that as well. Do you follow any of the conferences at the ITB Berlin convention? Yes. I spend a good 50- 60% of my time in the convention centre! I try to meet as many as people as I can on the convention floor that are applicable to our business. I mainly attend sessions that are related to group or yield management, revenue management and the associated technologies. OUR COMPANY PROCESSES 2,000 GROUP LEADS A DAY WORLDWIDE ITB BERLIN NEWS • Friday 7 th March 2014
