Berlin, October 2021 – Even though the number 21 symbolises adulthood, ehotel® remains as boundlessly creative and innovative as it was in its early days. To mark its 21st anniversary, the Berlin-based company is thanking the many customers who have remained loyal to the hotel booking portal: From medium-sized companies, large corporations and small family businesses to influential DAX-listed companies, whether new customers or users from the very beginning. “Without the trust of our customers, we would never have been able to develop into such a major player in the industry,” emphasises Fritz Zerweck, CEO of ehotel®: “Many of our ideas only came about because we listened to our customers and tried to find a solution for every challenge.” This customer-focused approach has already been recognised with numerous awards; for instance, ehotel® received the “German Customer Award” and holds titles such as “Service Champion” from Die Welt, “Best SME Service Provider”, “The Best Online” from Focus Money, and many others. Internationally, too, ehotel® regularly proves itself worthy of awards, impressing editorial teams and juries as the “Most Influential Company of the Year” (CXO Fortune Magazine), “Hot Brand” (CEOviews) or “Fastest Growing Company of the Year” (The Silicon Review).
The success story of ehotel® began 21 years ago with the vision of simplifying travel bookings for business travellers. Thus, ehotel® – for the first two years still in partnership with I:FAO – pioneered the development of a hotel booking portal that today offers much more than just travel bookings. Thanks to a small group of investors, ehotel® has long been an independent company. Other key milestones certainly include the switch to the international standard OTA (Open Travel Alliance) software in 2004, the development of the central billing solution for business travel and events in 2006, and finally the launch of the innovative meta-search technology in 2011, which filters suitable hotel rooms from over 7 million available hotel offers. The credit-card-free central billing technology followed in 2015, and PayPal has also been available as a payment option since 2017.
Looking ahead, ehotel® is focusing on sustainability and eco-friendly travel. “We owe this to our customers too,” says Fritz Zerweck, “we only have one world and we should preserve it.” ehotel® is already making it easier for customers to find sustainable hotels, filter search results by recognised certifications and calculate their own carbon footprint. Internally, too, the focus is on green initiatives – with waste reduction, train travel instead of flying, eco-tickets, energy-saving measures and many other small steps, the Berlin headquarters is setting a good example to become climate-neutral as soon as possible. This is how the ehotel® success story continues – innovative and in step with the times. The hotel booking platform ehotel® brings together accommodation offers from providers worldwide on a single platform using META-SEARCH technology. The Berlin-based company focuses its business strategy on providing comprehensive support for hotel bookings and the associated services for business customers. By integrating tools and services into the systems of the respective companies, alongside proprietary payment and billing solutions, ehotel® ensures optimised processes, seamless expenditure control, compliance and cost savings for its clients. The booking platform has repeatedly been recognised for its service quality by, among others, the German Institute for Service Quality and the market research institute ServiceValue.
