The founding shareholders in hotel.de AG have sold their shares in the company, totalling 61.6 per cent, to HRS Hotel Reservation Service, Cologne.

This combination should strengthen the two companies’ market position in an increasingly competitive market climate and generate substantial synergies.

Heinz Raufer, chief executive officer of hotel.de AG, said: “This combination comes at exactly the right time, will boost hotel.de’s position in the global hotel portal business and provides us with a superb basis for our further development.”

This partnership will also benefit booking customers, who will obtain even better prices and availability levels in future due to the sharp rise in reservation volumes, as well as being able to select their desired hotel from an even greater range of hotels worldwide.

The hotels under contract, on the other hand, stand to benefit from further growth in booking volumes by corporate and private customers.

hotel.de AG will continue to be managed by its existing management team as a standalone company at its existing locations and will, as planned, maintain its expansion with its hotel.de brand in Germany and hotel.info brand abroad.

Stefan Morschheuser, supervisory board chairman of hotel.de AG: “The Supervisory board of hotel.de is looking forward to the strategic alliance. Our brand will increase its awareness and our hotel and booking customers will gain several advantages by taking this step.”