Clever Hotel Reservations

The market

This is probably our biggest and most challenging project as the online travel market is one of the most competitive on the web. The European online travel market is booming.

Online travel sales increased by as much as 31% from 2005 to 2006 and reached EUR 38.3 billion in the European market in 2006 - or 15% of the market (up from EUR 29.3 bn. or 12% in 2005).

A further increase of about 22% during 2007 to about EUR 46.8 billion may be expected (18% of the market). The European online travel market could increase by another 8 bn. EUR or 18% in 2008 to approach EUR 55 bn. The UK accounted for 34% of the European online travel market in 2006, with Germany in second place at 20%.

The direct sellers accounted for 69% of online sales in the European market in 2006, intermediaries 31%. In 2006 the breakdown of the market by type of service was as follows: Airtravel 56%; Hotels (and other accommodations) 16%; Package tours 16%; Rail 8%; Car rentals (and car ferries) 4%.

We want a slice of that cake!

The Competition

Although the major travel sites including Expedia, Travelocity, Cheap Tickets, Orbitz and Priceline each have distinctive designs, what they offer is basically the same.

Where these types of sites traditionally have specialized in one area, like inexpensive airline tickets, now they are geared toward offering a full range of travel products -- from tours to hotel rooms to last-minute trip packages.

This is a direction that has been largely determined by consumer desire to have a one-stop shopping experience. That's why we see these sites with air, car, hotel, and the rest It's the idea of giving the consumer the integrated experience by linking all these together.

The losers in such a scenario might turn out to be direct sellers, such as those sites operated by airlines or tour companies that offer only single-type packages and no mix-and-match capabilities. Most airline sites are trying to move beyond their traditional offerings by providing hotel, car and package information.

The Opportunity

Everyone is moving in the direction of having as much under the same umbrella as possible. That gives smaller more specialized sites a unique opportunity to find that niches in the market and most importantly the niches in the Search Engines.

Clever Marketing did do an in -depth keyword analysis to identify the most profitable keywords to target. You can find these here: hotels

Clever Marketing accumulated a wealth of expertise , experience sand resources in the field of SEO – Search Engine Optimisation.  Therefore we firmly believe that using this expertise we can indeed get our slice of this market.

The Product

Clever Hotel Reservations markets  hotel accommodation, perfect for that weekend away with your partner, or that family holiday in the sun you’ve been planning for ages but never get seem to take.

We have over 45,000 hotels worldwide listed on our database, ranging from sleek city centre hotels to quaint, boutique-style seaside resorts. The user can choose from convenient airport stopover hotels and two-and three-star budget hotel rooms, to gorgeous four-and five-star luxury resorts fit for a king.

What you are looking at is not the final website. This is a scaled-down, temporary website we are running while we work on the final, much-improved one. So check back often. The database and reservation system are both fully functional, however, and you may browse for accommodation and make your booking with complete peace of mind. Transhotels - the prestigious Madrid-based company behind the database system – has years of experience in the industry, and supplies online reservation solutions to some of Europe’s best hotel booking agencies.

Market feedback and Project planning

While we’re in the process of developing our final website, we encourage you to leave feedback in our online blog. Tell us what features you’d expect from an online hotel reservation service, how important a booking hotline is, what experiences you’ve had from other similar sites (both good and bad!) and, finally, what makes you use one travel website but not another?

By collating this information, we aim to develop a website that is highly functional from the beginning, meaning a more effective system is in place for you, the user.

The best ideas and comments will be entered into a free prize draw, where you and your family will get the chance to win a holiday in a stunning resort on the Costa del Sol.