Hotel Online  Special Report

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Accor Websites Report Six million Room Nights
Booked Online in 2003, an Increase of 57%
over Prior Year's 3.9 Million Bookings
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PARIS, Jan. 29, 2004 - More than six million room nights in Accor hotels were booked online in 2003, an increase of 57% over the prior year's 3.9 million bookings.

Room nights reserved on Accor hotel websites (the accorhotels.com portal, as well as sofitel.com, novotel.com, mercure.com, suite-hotel.com, ibishotel.com, etaphotel.com, hotelformule1.com, motel6.com and redroof.com) accounted for 83% of total online bookings, compared with 17% for online distributors.

Sustained growth in Internet business volume

Aggregate Internet bookings generated business volume of EUR 300 million in 2003, or 5.6% of lodging revenue, compared with EUR 202 million and 3.6% in 2002.

This performance was led by strong growth in bookings for hotels in Accor's Upscale and Midscale segments (Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and Suitehotel), although the Economy segment still accounts for 60% of online bookings.

A new spotlight on the offers and more attractive sites

The international accorhotels.com portal and a number of Group websites, notably sofitel.com and etaphotel.com, were revamped in 2003, to make their offers more appealing and to improve online services.  Every month, 3.7 million people visit Accor's hotel websites.

As 2004 gets underway, accorhotels.com is focusing on enhancing its attractiveness and promoting leisure activities:

  • By displaying a new design and new ways of selecting destinations.
  • By broadening the range of online offers to include, for example, hotel stays featuring thalassotherapy programs.
  • By expanding the online hotel offering to certain destinations, notably Germany with the inclusion of Dorint hotels.
To more effectively meet the needs of international visitors (three out of four Accor website visitors come from outside France), the accorhotels.com portal, previously accessible in French, English and German, is adding a fourth language, Spanish, with the goal of reaching the world's nearly 400 million Spanish-speakers.

With 150,000 associates in 140 countries, Accor is the European leader and one of the world's largest groups in travel, tourism and corporate services.

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Contact:
Accor
http://www.accor.com

 
Also See: TravelCLICK Reports Recovery for Hotel Bookings on Internet and GDS since Onset of Iraq War - Company Issues Tips to Hotels: Don't Stay Quiet / April 2003
Electronic Bookings Up 10.5% in Q3 for Hotels Worldwide; Consumer Internet Component up 51.6% / eMonitor Results / November 2003
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