TravelMole Interview: Severine Philardeau, Active Hotels
The Active Hotels manager tells TravelMole why the deal with Spain’s largest hotel group will keep its distribution partners happy.
Ms Philardeau is European Development manager at Active Hotels. She says its online distribution partners were calling out for some more Spanish inventory.
According to Ms Philardeau, the growth of online hotel bookings to Spain has been spurred by the increase in short haul travel with no-friils carriers. She also says that by booking air travel online with no-frills carriers, people have become more open to booking accommodation online.
Ms Philardeau said: “Active Hotels got the deal with Sol Melia because we offered the most flexible agreement to develop an interface which worked well with their central reservations.”
She added: “The strong links between the UK and Spain due to the flow of tourists between the two countries meant Sol Melia was happy to work with a UK partner.”
Sol Melia is the largest hotel group in Spain. It has 350 properties around the world, including 170 in Spain.
“It is a pioneering deal for them because at the moment they only distribute through traditional and online agents and GDSs. It is the first time they have worked with an online reservations provider that directly accesses their reservations system. This means there is no need for the hotelier to update the inventory – it is all automatic.”
Sol Melia has its own online presence so can sell direct to consumers, but according to Ms Philardeau, the deal with Active Hotels means the hotel group has not had to enter into separate negotiations with a number of distribution partners.
Ms Philardeau says the first Sol Melia hotels are already live and can be booked through Active Hotels’ online partners. Active Hotels makes its money by charging hotels a commission on all bookings, which it then shares with distribution partners. It works with 1,500 distribution partners including lastminute.com and Multimap.
Sol Melia is the second largest deal for Active Hotels, behind its deal with France’s second largest hotel group, Envergure, signed about theree months ago. The reservations provider has a record month in August and is now clocking up 130 million euros worth of bookings per year.
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