Online hospitality

Hotel Reservation Service (HRS), a Germany-based company which offers online hotel booking, has opened its first office in Poland, and its fifth worldwide. The service allows travellers to make hotel reservations online and free of charge, with immediate confirmation.

"It took four years to prepare our launch on the Polish market," said Peter Schwarzkopf, managing director of HRS Poland. "We had to create a database of most of the hotels in Poland," he added.

Schwarzkopf cited growing interest in Poland's tourism market as the reason for the move. "We opened the office in Warsaw because we were asked about hotels in Poland more and more frequently," he said. "Last year almost 16 million visitors came to Poland. A quarter of them were Germans. That is how we realized there was a need to establish a new office in Poland." Schwarzkopf added.

Tobias Ragge, a member of the board of HRS, added, "We see great potential here. The tourism market grows 13 percent every year."

The first Polish hotels available for booking through the HRS website were located in Poznań and Warsaw. Now the website lists hotels in 89 locations. The site lists offers from some 400 hotels in Poland, and 225,000 in over 80 countries around the world.

"Eighty percent of all hotels in big Polish cities can be found in our booking system," said Schwarzkopf. "Now we cooperate with almost all chain and independent hotels," he added. "We are growing together with our corporate partners," said Schwarzkopf. "That is why we plan to open one or two new offices in Southern Europe, probably in Italy," he revealed to WBJ.

The firm already has local offices in London, Paris and Shanghai.