Tourism is unstoppable, as well as its metamorphosis. Physical travel agencies - or, better said, analog, have had to revolucionarse or disappear before the rise of e-commerce: the image of the office to organize the holiday has already left the collective imagination, especially among younger clients or on short trips.
The Spanish hotels are filled more and more with a mouse, with reserves in many cases of foreign online travel agencies, popular in Germany or the United States and almost unknown in the spanish market. Each country has its reference marks, and the popularity of the coasts and the spanish cities as a tourist destination, many of these foreign booking channels have as a source of business. It is the third tourist power on the planet, last year came back to beat record in terms of the number of international travellers, with the arrival of close to 68 million people.
What are the main travel agencies on the Internet that pull the strings of the tourism online in Spain (the so-called OTAs, for its acronym in English)? Are large, multinational corporations that bill millions of euros. SiteMinder, a company that provides technological solutions to this industry - through a system to manage online bookings for accommodation, which provides large amounts of data in the industry-, has drawn up a list with the LWB 10 that have been distributed to the layout of the rooms in Spain, elaborated on the basis of the gross revenue generated.
The top ten of the reserves in Spain operated them, in this order, Booking, Expedia, Hotelbeds, Gulliver Travel Associates, Hotusa, Hotel Reservation Service, Orbitz, The Booking Button, Agoda and Travelocity.
1. Booking
Booking.com is the leader of online reservations, to lead the ranking both Spanish and global. This platform, whose offer of accommodation ranges from classic hotels to villas and boats, was born two decades ago in the Netherlands under the domain of Booking.nl. In 2005 it was acquired by 133 million dollars for the American Priceline Group, giant of the online travel industry, which is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and is also the owner of pages as Rentalcars Agoda, Kayaking, or Opentables.
Currently, Booking operates in 221 countries and your offer exceeds 800,000 units. Your web page is ranked 117 in the world rankings of most visited sites developed by Alexa.
2. Expedia
The second platform that more revenue generated by rooms in Spain is Expedia. Another titan of online bookings, who was born in 1996 in the bosom of Microsoft. Five years after it was sold to USA Networks InterActiveCorp (now), and became an independent company in 2005, when he was born Expedia, Inc. Currently, is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and owns other leading brands in the sector, such as TripAdvisor, Hotels.com or Trivago. Its value on the stock exchange exceeds 16,000 million dollars.
In Expedia is possible reserve, in addition to accommodation, flights, cars, cruises or combined packages. Last year, the company with headquarters in Washington strengthened its offer of portals through an aggressive policy of shopping cart: after with Travelocity, one of the best known reserves in the US and Canada, he bought his rival Orbitz. Shortly thereafter, she announced the acquisition of HomeAway, web page of rentals and rival of the popular platform AirBnb.
3. Hotelbeds
Hotelbeds occupies the third place in the ranking of SiteMinder. Founded in 2001, became part of the portfolio of the multinational TUI Group in 2007, the largest tour operator in Europe. TUI, with headquarters in Hanover, Germany, has several divisions, and is listed on stock exchanges in London and Frankfurt. In addition to being the owner of travel agencies, tour operators and hotel chains, also owns airlines and shipping companies.
Hotelbeds Group works with both travel agencies as with retail customers and operates in more than 180 countries.
4. Gulliver Travel Associates (GTA)
Gulliver Travel Associates, or GTA, is a travel wholesaler company founded in 1975 in United Kingdom. After entering to form part of the portfolio of Travelport, American platform that offer technological solutions to the tourism sector, in 2011 it was acquired by the Swiss group Kuoni.
GTA works in the B2B segment (for companies); its range of offers includes packages tours, restaurants and accommodation in more than 180 countries. With more than 45,000 suppliers and processes more than 21,000 reservations to the day.
5. Hotusa
Hotusa is a consortium of Spanish hotel. Created in 1977 in Barcelona, has consolidated its position as the largest chain of independent hotels on the planet. Has a presence in all over the world with more than 2,500 associated establishments and about 150 of property.
Your business is divided into two main areas: the hotel division, which includes the exploitation of hotels so much ownership as opposed to leasing, and the tourist part, which is responsible for providing services and advice to companies in the sector. The establishments operating under the brands of Eurostars Hotels and Exe Hotels. One of the last of the consortium is the Sheraton Madrid Mirasierra, now renamed as the Eurostars Suites Mirasierra.
6. Hotel Reservation Service (HRS)
Hotel Reservation Service (or HRS) was founded in the 70 years in Cologne, Germany. It is a system of electronic booking of hotels, which is addressed both to companies in the tourism sector how to retail customers. Has a portal online booking of accommodation which comprises more than 250,000 hotels in 190 countries.
Their presence on the list of SiteMinder is a symptom of the strong influx of German tourists to Spain: along with British and French are foreigners who travel to Spain. In the first nine months of 2015, were more than eight million Germans who visited the country.
7. Orbitz
Orbitz was born in 2001 from the hand of the main U.S. airlines (American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Air Lines). In Europe, his would be equivalent to Opodo, now in the ownership of the group Odigeo. Since last September, Orbitz is part of the portfolio of Expedia, which was acquired by 1,300 million dollars.
Orbitz is one of the marks of Bernstein Worldwide, which in turn owns other firms as Asia-hotels.com. ebookers.com, cheaptickets or Your offer, in addition to the reservations for accommodation and flights, also includes the rental of cars, cruises and excursions.
8. The Booking Button
The Booking Button is a management platform that SiteMinderofrece to wholesalers in the tourism sector. This is a cloud-based technology that enables you to manage the bookings from the hotel's web site.
In exchange, the establishments pay a fixed monthly fee according to the number of rooms that want to offer through the system. Is available in multiple languages and currencies and has adapted to various devices.
9. Agoda
Agoda was founded in the 90 years in Thailand. In 2007 it was acquired by the American Priceline Group, the same owner of Booking, with the aim of reinforcing its presence in Asia.
Is based in Singapore and its offer encompasses more than 700,000 units. Your business strategy is based on the discounts and guarantee the best prices to end customers.
10. Travelocity
Travelocity was the first company that eliminated the intermediation of agents in the comparison and purchase of tickets. With headquarters in the United States, its activity dates back to the mid 90, when American Airlines began to give access to your online reservation system (hereinafter referred to as the Sabre). Initially, Travelocity was born as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sabre Holding, in turn branch of the airline.
In 2005, the company, which had already begun to function independently and listed on the Nasdaq, acquired lastminute.com, one of the leading online travel portals in Europe. Well known in the American and Canadian markets, Travelocity offers the possibility to book online - from packages up to car rentals, tours or cruises-, in addition to having a tailor-made service for business travel. In January 2015, Expedia bought it for 280 million dollars.