The Business Travel Award 2001
for the best websites catering for business travel has been awarded to the
Hotel Reservation Service (HRS) by the magazine Business Traveller.
The ranking: 1st place - Lufthansa, 2nd place - HRS, 3rd place - Deutsche Bahn.  HRS, who is undoubtedly the European market leader in the
hotel reservation sector, has a hotel database containing more than 90,000 hotels worldwide, of all price categories, which can be booked online by mouse-click at special discounted rates.
For years HRS has been known as “best site for business travellers,”
“premier address when it comes to hotels,” “No. 1 among the hotel brokers,”
“top address on the web,” “competent,” “one step ahead,” “perfect search and
booking machine for business and private travel.”
The system, which has already been operating for 29 years, offers free hotel reservations to anyone requiring accommodation.  City visitors wishing
to spend their Easter in the beautiful city of Rome, or businessmen requiring
accommodation at short notice, will both find something to suit their needs
and requirements. Smaller businesses and bigger cooperations can be directly
connected with the HRS system for free. Bookings are free of charge, can be
transacted within a split second and are confirmed immediately. Payment
follows at the hotel, and reservations without credit card are possible.
At present more than 8,650 international companies are exclusively using the HRS system for processing their reservations and bookings. Among these are, for example, the ADAC, AirPlus, CrossAir, Electrolux, Hewlett Packard,
Karstadt/Quelle, RWE, Unilever and Zeiss. Travel agency groups such as
BTI/Euro Lloyd, as well as numerous medium-sized travel operators in Germany
and abroad, have integrated the HRS reservations system into their business
operations. Companies operating in the tourism sector are linked directly to
the hotel reservation system by means of an encrypted internet access facility
for partners.
When searching for accommodation, only hotels which can be booked directly
are displayed. The customer is offered the “best buy” rate, i.e. the lowest room rate currently on offer. Last minute rates, special promotional offers
and weekend offers are automatically taken into account. These rates can be
updated continuously by the hotels, making allowance for individual levels of
reservation and availability. Empty beds in the afternoon mean rock-bottom prices for the customer that night. For the hotel this flexibility in pricing policy ensures fully booked rooms. In the hotel sector, HRS has the reputation of being the most flexible and best-valued reservation system the world has to offer.
The mobile phone business is also becoming increasingly important for the hotel reservation sector. All German mobile phone networks are working in cooperation with HRS via integrated quick dialling. HRS is also the
front-runner in the development of WAP technology for hotel reservations. In
line with latest GPRS developments, HRS has released its new WAP Version 2.0, to be found at www.wap.hrs.com.
With only a few clicks, WAP users can now book their hotel anywhere in the
world.
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