Big three bookings site to launch in January
Accor, Forte and Hilton International are close to launching their joint Web site for hotel bookings, which is to be called andbook.com.
Visitors to the site, which is due to start up by January 2001 and cost £12m, will be able to make reservations for any of Accor's 3,500 hotels, Forte's 450 properties and the 220 hotels run by Hilton International.
The companies expect the site to account for 15% of their business within three years.
While the site will initially focus on room reservations, the partners intend to expand the service to conference and meeting facilities and travel services such as car hire.
Once the new company has won clearance from European competition authorities, which is expected by late November, it will be incorporated in the UK and located in London and Paris. Chief executive officer is to be Michael Madison, former worldwide director of e-commerce at Forte.
The three founders hope to be able to name some new partners in the venture within weeks. "We are talking with all the major players in Europe, country by country," said Serge Ragozin, executive vice-president for hotels and resorts at Accor. "Initial interest is very strong from most of them."
The trio are also planning a business-to-business website for hotel groups to buy goods and services on-line. Razov hoped the first phase could be launched by mid-2001, initially for the European market. The partners are already investigating the Asia Pacific area.
Bass, which last month joined a similar on-line marketplace devised by Marriott International and Hyatt Hotels for the North American market, said it was still interested in the European venture, and had not ruled out joining the combined reservations service either.
A spokesman for Whitbread said there was "tremendous enthusiasm" in the company for the purchasing project and that joining it was "still very much a possibility". But Whitbread believed it was already well-covered by on-line reservations services.