Venere.com - unravelling the numbers behind the success

Venere.com's results and performance have recently become a very secretive affair - you could could call it the European online hotel misterioso. There was no doubt about their success and growth from their general presence in Europe and feedback from customers and hoteliers but since 2004 we have heard little in the form of concrete performance metrics and results.

For background, Venere is one of the older online hotel players - having established itself in 1995. The founders -Matteo Fago, Renata Sarno and Gianandrea Strekelj- took some funding earlier in 2000 and 2001. However recently they sold down their their holdings, bringing in private equity firm Advent International - who took majority control at the end of 2006 through it's Italian director Filippo de Vecchi.

Up until 2004 they published on their site their turn-over under the heading "Key Figures" shown here below
You can see more than a million room nights and Euro 100mm in turn over. Since then the information flow has dried up....until now.

The Relations blog has posted an informative interview with Venere.com's SEO Manager, Susan Geraeds. Well worth a read.

Interesting facts out of the article are:

• 9,000,000 unique vistors per month;
• 16,500 contracted hotels;
• 4,500 international destinations;
• 160 members of staff;
• over 350,000 hotel reviews;
• affiliate program with 3000 partners, an offline travel agent program with more than 1000 travel agents;
• hotels do not pay commission on no-show bookings; and
  
• no booking fees and no cancellation fees

No update on turn-over and room nights. However clear evidence of growth and success. Assuming that growth rates for 2005 and 2006 were in the same range as that for 2003 to 2005, the current turnover is likely in excess of Euro 200 million on 2 million room nights but will have to wait for another interview or leak to unravel the mystery more.

UPDATE - June 07 PhoCusWright European Online Travel report (have to subscribe to get it) puts the Venere.com 2006 turnover at EUR290mm. If true it means little to no slowing in their growth last 3 years.