Success Story
Faster Onboarding, Higher Volumes: How ETG Scaled Independent Hotel Supply
Reaching independent hotels one by one and building trust market by market made direct contracting more challenging to scale for Emerging Travel Group. With HyperGuest, that changed: booking volume from newly connected hotels grew 81% in Germany and 42% in Switzerland in five months.
October 8, 2026
About Emerging Travel Group
Emerging Travel Group (ETG) operates three online booking platforms, each built for a different type of traveler: RateHawk for travel agents and industry professionals, Roundtrip for business travelers, and ZenHotels for individual travelers. RateHawk, the group's flagship B2B platform, connects more than 110,000 travel professionals, retail agents, tour operators, and API partners worldwide.
Together, ETG's brands form a diversified distribution ecosystem spanning leisure, corporate, and professional travel, helping clients and partners book more than 3.32 million hotels worldwide, flights on 450 airlines, transfers in 150 countries, car rental, and other travel services.
The Challenge
ETG had already built one of the industry's most comprehensive supply ecosystems: 350+ suppliers and more than 250,000 directly contracted properties, backed by a technical infrastructure of 1,500+ servers powering its search engine. Expanding direct contracting further became a strategic priority, enabling ETG to improve rate competitiveness, deepen local presence and strengthen relationships with accommodation providers.
Independent hotels, boutique chains, and regional hotel groups remained the hardest segment to reach at scale. Each property had to be approached, onboarded, and supported individually. The process was highly manual and required significant time and effort for extranet setup, content verification, room and rate-plan mapping, with language barriers adding more complexity.
The HyperGuest Solution
HyperGuest gave ETG a faster route to direct hotel partnerships. Because hotels are already pre-configured on the platform, ETG could establish connectivity and start selling without repeating the full onboarding process for every new property. This reduces operational workload on both sides and shortens time-to-market.
“This type of direct cooperation allows ETG to engage with hoteliers more quickly, eliminate unnecessary intermediaries, simplify the onboarding process, and start generating bookings from day one. The support provided by HyperGuest's local teams has been invaluable throughout this process. Their professionalism, market expertise, and responsiveness have helped us identify and connect with high-quality hotel partners available on the marketplace.”
HyperGuest's Impact at a Glance
- 81% increase in booking volume from HyperGuest-connected hotels in Germany, comparing the first five months of 2026 to the same period in 2025.
- 42% increase in booking volume from HyperGuest-connected hotels in Switzerland over the same period.
- 3 to 4 weeks from development start to a completed technical integration.
- Full visibility into direct hotel connections, strengthening trust and collaboration with hotel partners.
Results
- Faster growth in underrepresented markets. The most tangible commercial result has been the accelerated growth of ETG's direct hotel portfolio, particularly in destinations where the group doesn't yet have local contracting teams on the ground.
- Less manual overhead. Working with hotels already enabled on HyperGuest let ETG bypass a large share of the manual work typically tied to direct contracting, freeing teams to focus on strategic growth.
- New inbound demand from hotels. HyperGuest's transparency lets hotels see which travel companies are actively engaging with their inventory. That visibility has driven a growing number of hoteliers to reach out proactively, strengthening existing partnerships and opening new ones.
- Reach across every customer segment. HyperGuest supply has strengthened ETG's presence in high-demand markets, from European ski resorts to beach destinations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and the Maldives. On the corporate side, a strong portfolio of city hotels across the US, LATAM, and EMEA meets business travelers' needs.
Looking Ahead
As ETG expands into new source markets and deepens penetration in existing ones, the group expects the HyperGuest partnership to grow even further.
“The main value is the speed, efficiency, and simplicity it brings to establishing direct partnerships. It enables us to connect with hotels quickly and seamlessly, significantly reducing the time and resources typically required for contracting, onboarding, and technical integration. It allows us to scale our direct supply more efficiently while creating value for both hotel partners and travelers.”