THE GOIRELAND.COM accommodation booking portal is being relaunched with a €2 million investment by financial services group Fexco and Mike Webster, one of its former senior executives.
According to research by GoIreland.com, 80 per cent of bookings made by Irish people for “staycations” in this country are done through international online travel agents (OTA) such as hotels.com. As a result, at least €50 million, and possibly up to €100 million, is being lost in booking fees and commissions by local accommodation providers.
“This is the great unbroached subject in the tourism industry,” said Mr Webster, who was head of global sales and business development with Fexco until last year and has assumed the role of CEO at GoIreland.com.
“We are trying to organise Irish tourism against big international bookers,” said Mr Webster. He cited the example of a hotel with annual revenues of €4 million who was paying €400,000 in commission to overseas agents.
The commission charged to a hotel or guest house by the big OTA’s ranges from 15-50 per cent according to Mr Webster.
He says GoIreland.com is charging 12.5 per cent and will “continuously lower” this fee as its booking volumes rise. “We want the Irish cost of internet distribution to fall from 50 to 5 per cent,” said Mr Webster.
The GoIreland.com website has been redesigned to support the new strategy. It is powered by the Gulliver Ireland booking engine, which is used in tourist offices and also powers other websites.
Mr Webster said the domestic market is sizeable with 8.3 million bed nights booked by Irish people annually compared to 7.9 million by international visitors.
As part of the new strategy booking fees will be dropped in tourist offices while hotels and guest houses can list their accommodation for free. Mr Webster says he plans to extend free listing to bed and breakfasts next year.
GoIreland.com is being run by a new company Visitravel, which is a subsidiary of Fexco.
Visitravel also includes Nova Car Hire which is an international broker for low-cost car hire. Mr Webster says there is a huge opportunity to sell the underlying technology to airlines. “Remember airlines still book 40 per cent of cars hired globally,” said Mr Webster.
The business model is similar to CarTrawler, the Irish firm acquired by UK private equity firm ECI Partners earlier this year.
“We will compete with CarTrawler on price and services,” said Mr Webster.
Visitravel employs 35 staff and is located at Fexco’s offices in Killorglin, Co Kerry, but is in the process of moving to offices in Killarney.
Mr Webster said a €250,000 online marketing campaign was planned between now and the end of the year.
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