04 Aug 2017

Trivago focuses on serving suppliers, lifts hotel inventory to 1.8 million

Hotel meta Trivago has issued its standalone Q2 2017 results, expanding on the positive soundings which came out of its parent company Expedia Inc’s results a few weeks ago.

In its second quarter results presentation, Trivago execs concentrated their attention on how Trivago’s B2B advertising relationship with hotels supplier was fundamental to its B2C success. CEO Rolf Schroemgens talked about the need to not only have access “to all online booking rates” but that these rates needed to be presented to the customer in a clear and simple display.

“Comprehensiveness is a differentiator,” he said, pointing out that Trivago now has access to 1.8 million properties, sourced from more than 180 booking sites, more than 230 hotel chains and some 11,000 individual hotels.

It is the advertiser relations team which signs up the B2B supply, and is also responsible for getting suppliers to take advantage of the various tools Trivago makes available for the suppliers to optimise their presence on the site. It believes that the increased competition between suppliers drives better rates for the consumer and better returns for the supplier and itself.

Some of the tools also generate revenues in their own right. Hotel Manager is used by more than 300,000 hotels, some 33,000 of whom use its paid-for product PRO.

The results also drill down into its B2C marketing approach. In the first half of the year it spent more than half a billion euros on consumer-facing sales and marketing, equivalent to 90% of revenues. Its return on advertising spend (ROAS) for the half is 117%.

Elsewhere, the regional breakdown of its results show that Trivago is looking to grow beyond its established “developed Europe” and “Americas” regions with a big push into the rest of the world (RoW). It specified three RoW markets where it was increasing its marketing activities – India, Japan and Russia.

Click here to access its Investor Relations page from where the earnings release, investor presentation and webcast recording can be accessed.

Background from Tnooz:
Expedia pays $632 million for majority stake in Trivago, let the travel search games begin (Dec 2012)