Accorhotels.com and HotelsCombined.com have announced a new global distribution agreement.
The deal applies to all Accor’s international properties including the brands Sofitel, Pullman, M Gallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, All Seasons, Formule 1, HotelF1 and Etap.
Romain Roulleau, senior vice president e-commerce for Accor, said: “Our strategy is to develop our presence on key meta-search like HotelsCombined.com in order to increase the client retention on our direct distribution channels and especially on our portal Accorhotels.com.
“By purchasing on our sites, the client not only benefits from the best price guarantee but can also get information on our worldwide loyalty program Aclub.”
Yury Shar, managing director of HotelsCombined.com, added the deal “re-emphasises the importance of meta-search as a valuable link in the hotel distribution chain”.
Meanwhile, HotelsCombined.com has appointed Graham Robertson as new product marketing coordinator.
Robertson, who writes the ProjectWander travel industry blog, will look to increase the awareness of the hotel meta-search site through social media channels.
He brings five years of industry experience including leading the business to business operations team at Octopus/GTA.
More recently he has developed the iFindHotels application – an iPhone app that allows users to simultaneously compare hotel rates and book through their handset.
Robertson said: “Becoming part of the Hotels Combined team is huge honour for me, I couldn’t be more excited to work with such a creative and experienced group of people.”