Have internet, will travel easily and affordably

WSE-listed e-commerce company Netmedia is sparing no effort to become the leader on the e-booking market in Poland. At the beginning of the month, the company bought eHotele.pl - the owner of five hotel-booking portals - for the total sum of zł.600,000. It began this year with the purchase of several domains from the e-commerce branch while at the end of 2006, the company also signed a contract with travel company Orbis, which granted Netmedia access to the database of all of the hotels within its group.

After the acquisition of eHotele.pl, Netmedia operates a broad range of hotel domains, seven of which are major brands. "We will concentrate on intensive integration of new portals with the company's hotel reservation engine," explains Andrzej Wierzba, Netmedia's CEO. "The portals will continue to operate independently of each other as each one has its own base of regular clients," he adds.

Three of Netmedia's largest booking portals, such as Travelpoland.com, are aimed at foreigners, who account for up to 25 percent of Netmedia's online-booking clients. "Unlike foreign portals, we know the local market and can provide more support and better prices, which can save clients up to 75 percent off hotel costs," stresses Wierzba. Foreigners are also the targets for two of Netmedia's English-language versions of real-estate portals, Mieszkania.net and Locumnet.pl.

Thanks to a combination of acquisitions and organic growth, the majority of the firm's forecast zł.6.1 million in 2007 revenue is to come from e-booking. The firm expects total net profit to reach zł.1.5 million, almost twice as much as last year.