TOURISM MARKETING. IS HEBERI THREAT TO TOUR OPERATORS?

What is HEBERI exactly?
Well, there are Online-booking platforms such as booking.com, expedia.com, trivago.com, etc., and there are many Tour operators like TUI in Germany, Thomson in the UK, Fritidsresor in Scandinavia, TEZ TOUR in Russia, etc., in the holiday & tourism industry. So the first part is the Online Booking Platform, and the second group is Tour Operators. HEBERI is neither of them but is a marketing platform. It is not the same as any of those mentioned.

Ok, so to which one of those categories is Heberi closer to?
If you need to place close to one category, it is far closer to Tour Operators. It is more helpful for Tour Operators. We believe a very big percentage of the holiday industry flows through Tour Operators. We built HEBERI to support their marketing challenge.

So, to better understand, can you give me a live example to clarify its position? For example, how helpful HEBERI is for TUI?
Well, when you mention the name TUI, let me give you an example with TUI then: TUI has hotels in destinations and works with agents across Germany and other countries where they operate to find clients. For TUI, it is not important where or which particular HOTEL the client goes on holiday. In terms of profitability, they are almost the same for TUI. And TUI makes marketing in Germany to find clients for Holiday and mainly they find clients through Agents, right? TUI pays a certain percentage as booking commission for every booking they make anyway. Until here, things are clear;

Now, assuming TUI works with HEBERI, hotels that work with TUI can also make their marketing to agents, in addition to TUI`s marketing. They can offer and pay an extra commission from their side, apart from TUI`s commission payment. And can ask agents to recommend his hotel for bookings. In that case, not only is TUI searching for clients, but Hotels are also searching for clients, and both are searching for clients for TUI. Hotels search for bookings on themselves, but via TUI because TUI is the authorized Tour Operator in Germany. This is why we call it helpful for Tour Operators. This is something new.

When you talk about marketing, what exactly do you mean? How can a hotel market to agents?
Well, that is another unique function of HEBERI. Traditionally, marketing takes place via fairs. You print brochures, posters, and during fair organization time, you try to deliver as many brochures as possible to agents/clients attending and expect them to choose your hotel for booking.  We made this online. We brought Hotels as one user and Booking Agent as the second user. The Hotel can prepare its advert on its own and send it to all booking agents in the system.
In HEBERI, there are ready-made templates for Hotels to use. They just need to select a template, a few of their hotel's best images, and the most eye-catching facility/features. Then send it to the agents of the country you want. His advertising will be sent instantly to all agents in the country he selects. And they can use the marketing 7/24 anytime they need.

Well, it seems Hotels can use marketing to find clients for themselves, but why should a booking agent use it? What is the agent`s gain from using HEBERI?
Look, no one is using HEBERI to do you or us a favor. The hotel needs to use it to make marketing, to catch clients. Because for Tour Operator; A hotel and B hotel are almost the same. But the hotel owner wants clients for his hotel only.
Tour Operator needs to use HEBERI to increase the marketing with the help of Hotels. It is simply a marketing supplement to his.
And the agent will use it to increase his earnings. TUI pays a certain percentage of commission anyway. And the agent gets this without us. But let's be clear, every hotel owner wants the client to stay at their hotel only. Now, what is wrong if the Hotel owner pays an extra commission from his pocket in addition to what the tour operator pays?
Marketing can`t be done to air so that you expect someone to find your advertisement. When you advertise in a newspaper, on TV, or on social media, this is what you can get. You pay something for hope only. HEBERI changes it to a real. You advertise to those who are the most influential on clients' hotel decisions.
With HEBERI, smaller hotels get a chance to reach out to the tourism market. Small hotels don’t have enough financial resources to do marketing. We bring an opportunity for them.
 
So, an extra commission from the Hotel is an extra income for the agent. What is the rate, how much the Hotel will pay?
Well, that’s what the Hotel Owner will decide. Neither to pay/don't pay, nor its rate. We don’t have interference on this point. However, if they set an offer and the agent makes a booking based on a predefined commission offer, it MUST be paid within 24 hours from the client’s check-in date.
 
What if he doesn’t pay then? What happens then?
The hotel owner's entire account will be locked automatically. Hotels in his account will automatically be converted offline and will be prevented from appearing for new bookings. He will be prevented from making marketing until the pending balance is closed.
 
Is the EXTRA commission from hotels the only new additional activity for the Booking Agent? Do you have something else for them?
An extra commission from the Hotel for agents is something new with HEBERI, but that’s not all. Agents can make excursion bookings too with Heberi and get its booking commission. Holidaymakers attend multiple excursions during their holidays. For the vast majority of clients, the holiday is not only staying in a hotel, lying by the pool or beach, but they also explore the region. So, actually, the agent can increase his booking commission sharply.

Well, let me ask you a question about payment on HEBERI; we all know that there are serious question marks about holiday booking platforms' payment system in terms of users' credit card security. How secure is your payment system? Can you guarantee the user's credit card security?
Yes, you are right. Online booking platforms have a very serious problem with the reliability of users' payment instrument security. Coming to HEBERI: We work with PayPal for payments. All payments are taking place on PayPal`s payment page. When you go to payment and click the PAY button at the end, it redirects you to PayPal`s payment page. So you make the payment on PayPal`s payment page. So no payment is being initiated on our page. 
Actually, it is PayPal`s responsibility to secure the user's credit card/PayPal account credentials. We all know that PayPal is the biggest online payment system in the world, and users' payment security is their top priority. Therefore, we give a 100% guarantee for the security of their payment credentials.
We collect payment only, and in terms of HEBERI, PayPal collects our payments for us. Receiving payments by agents is available to a valid PayPal account only. No payment is sent to his bank account directly from us.

Final question, sir? Assuming a hotel did not make a commission payment on time, and his account is locked. What happens then? Do you send lawyers or sue them in court? How does the procedure work?
Well, thanks for asking this question. Let me be very clear. There isn`t and will not be any legal procedure to take place for unpaid commission payments from HEBERI. No lawyer will be authorized for such cases. However, the entire account also will not be reopened unless the pending balance is paid. Hotels in the account will be prevented from appearing for new bookings and from conducting marketing until the pending balance is closed. Eventually, when he pays the pending balance, the account will turn online automatically. This is how our system works.

Well, that was supposed to be the last question, but let's ask one last question. What do Hotels need to be most careful about when using HEBERI?
There is only one thing to be careful about. The APPROVAL of booking. Because no automatically approved booking will be received by hotels or other service providers. They will receive Booking Requests only. And that request needs to be APPROVED manually within 24 hours. If the Booking Request is not approved, it will be rejected automatically. There is no commission payment for rejected bookings, and the account will not be locked for rejected booking requests. Commission payment is for approved bookings only.  So when you receive a booking request, you MUST approve it within 24 hours. Otherwise, you will be seen as not approving booking requests to avoid the predefined offer, and that will discourage agents from recommending yours.
With every booking, an internal message drops into the agent's and hotels' inboxes on HEBERI, starting with the booking number. This message is for direct communication. They can communicate for further details if necessary. Any reply to this message is a direct message to the other side.
When a hotel receives a booking request, our system fires a notification email too, to the hotel`s user email, saying there is a new booking. But, we can’t guarantee receiving that notification email, because his email server may reject receiving emails from us, may redirect to the spam/junk folder, etc. So we suggest users check their HEBERI account once a day at least.