Treovi Unveils “Commission-Free” Hotel Booking Platform

Booking a hotel online is easy enough for the average ‘Internet-savvy’ consumer these days, but finding a room at a hotel that is not burdened by economic upheaval and commission – ad costs? That’s an altogether different kettle of fish…

As of today though, finding reasonable room rates online might become a lot easier (perhaps cheaper too) thanks to the launch of an innovative new booking platform that promises to be the world’s first entirely “commission-free” booking solution for both consumers and hotels.

Swiss-based start-up Treovi has opened up the hotel side of their promising new “free” platform aimed at ending a long reign of online marketing dominance online travel agencies have had. As of today, hotels can add their inventory to the free Internet channel. The logic behind such Internet innovations, hospitality business models, is drop dead simple – hotels can give better deals if their revenue is freed up. Paying 30 percent of a week long vacation booking – versus keeping the revenue that would go to commissions. At least, this is a consumer logic Treovi hopes future customers will benefit from.

Promising an innovative, (first revealed via Tnooz TLabs) new reservation system that provides everything hoteliers and guests need to get business done online, Treovi now allows hotels to sign in and up, and to create a dedicated profile page complete with descriptions, inventory and photos. Coming in August, guests will be able to search for hotels and make reservations – all completely free of charge.

Now accepting new hotel registrations, ahead of its worldwide launch on August 6. Interested hoteliers can sign up quickly and easily by heading to its registration page and filling in the basic details for their hotel. Once their application has been accepted and verified, they can then fill out an extensive hotel profile that includes a detailed description, inventory, room rates, room availability, and of course, essential images of the hotel.

Each hotel will be given a dedicated profile page on the Treovi site, from which guests will be able to quickly and easily check room availability, rates and make reservations. The site will also have its own search engine, allowing guests to find dozens of suitable hotels at their destination. We tested the “hotel side” of Treovi and found a drop dead simple hotelier CMS/UI one Eye for Travel’s Editor, Pamela Whitby, called “simple to look at and ‘straightforward to use.” Our own screen of the hotel policies add menu below shows off these characteristics.

Treovi’s co-founder, Michal Wrobel, reflects on the potential of this new booking platform:

“It is a soft launch, and still in beta, as we are currently improving quite a lot of things in order to deliver an outstanding experience to both guests and hoteliers. As the summer season is here, we wanted to provide hoteliers with a nice tool to start receiving non-commissioned reservations as soon as possible.”

With Global Hotels Exchange, Room Key, and some other players dabbling in this “free space” this Switzerland startup seems to have taken the idea of “free” channels a bit more seriously. It does remain to be seen whether or not Treovi has what it takes to break the iron grip of big OTAs like Expedia, over the marketing of travel beds. One thing seems sure, however, the smart, clued-up traveler stands a better chance at transparent value when commissions and hidden fees are out of the picture.

Treovi, if they are successful at reaching people, may become the next best thing in online booking. A great deal depends on the client side.

Disclosure: Pamil Visions PR, a company in the same network of properties as Argo Travel, consults for Treovi. This news release is a courtesy to network affiliates.