ASMALLWORLD AG has launched the ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection, an online hotel booking engine and travel service that focuses exclusively on the world’s best hotels. Benefits include room upgrades, $100 food & beverage credits, special rates, and late check-outs. The launch of the ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ allows the company to further monetise its travel-savvy member base and is expected to become a key contributor to the company’s growth.

The ASMALLWORLD Collection is a refined and extended version of the booking engine initially developed by LuxuryBARED, acquired by ASMALLWORLD in February 2019.

ASMALLWORLD’s in-house development team further improved the backend functionality of the booking engine and developed an entirely new front-end for web, iOS and Android. The result is a modern, intuitive, and highly visual booking experience across all platforms which caters to the preferences of its demanding customer base.

The ASMALLWORLD Collection will complement the company’s traditional travel agency business ‘ASMALLWORLD Private,’ which offers a highly personalised luxury travel curation service provided by a team of expert travel designers.

“The ASMALLWORLD Collection offers our customers an incredible selection of the world’s best hotels and with our exclusive ‘ASMALLWORLD Preferred Rate,’ we offer our customers something unique they simply can’t get from any other hotel booking engine,” says ASMALLWORLD CEO Jan Luescher.

Best hotels

The ASMALLWORLD Collection is focused exclusively on the world’s best hotels. The company’s strategy is not to offer a complete set of hotels for a destination but to present customers with a preselected list of first-class hotels. All listed hotels are hand-picked by the company’s travel experts for their exceptional guest experience. Customers can book their trips with confidence, knowing that whichever hotel they choose will meet the highest standards.

The ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ emphasizes leisure travel and caters to travellers looking for longer holidays or short-term getaways. At launch, the service will offer a selection of about 600 hotels concentrated in the most important travel destinations. To increase its global coverage and to offer a great variety of hotels, the company plans to grow the number of hotels to more than 1’000 in the future.

Preferred Rate

In addition to its high-quality hotel selection, the ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ offers its customers the choice between two rates, the ‘Lowest Rate’ and the exclusive ‘ASMALLWORLD Preferred Rate’ that provides tangible value-for-money to its customers with extraordinary benefits such as room upgrades, $100 food & beverage credits, early check-ins, late check-outs, daily breakfasts for two and free Wi-Fi.

The ‘ASMALLWORLD Preferred Rate’ offers customers a choice between booking the lowest available rate and a unique new rate with many extra benefits for little, or sometimes no additional cost.

Accessible for members and non-members

The new hotel booking engine is accessible via web as well as the ASMALLWORLD apps for iOS and Android. All platforms offer customers a first-class booking experience and customers can book or modify reservations on the platform of their choice.

The ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ will not only be available to ASMALLWORLD members but to non-members as well. To book the ASMALLWORLD Preferred Rate, a free account can be created during the booking process.

World-class partners

To offer such a first-class selection of hotels, as well as the unique ASMALLWORLD Preferred Rate, ASMALLWORLD works with great partners such as Virtuoso, Hyatt Privé, Hilton Impresario, Peninsula, Jumeirah, Shangri-La and The Leading Hotels of the World.

ASMALLWORLD plans to add additional partnerships in the future to grow its inventory even further.

Key contributor

The ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ allows ASMALLWORLD to further monetise its travel-savvy member base and is expected to become a key contributor to the company’s growth.

Based on a representative study conducted in 2019, ASMALLWORLD estimates that its members have a combined spend of CHF 1.1B on hotels per year. Members indicated that they undertake an average of 21 leisure trips per year and spend CHF 680M on such trips alone, which is the spend that the ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ is targeting.

While travel activity has been significantly reduced due to COVID-19, experts expect a significant recovery in 2021. With the introduction of the ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection,’ ASMALLWORLD positions itself to capture a meaningful portion of its members’ travel spend once international travel resumes.

As the booking engine is also open to non-members, the company may also capture the travel spend of customers beyond ASMALLWORLD’s member base, which offers an additional upside for the service.

Over the coming months, the company expects to introduce a booking-related loyalty bonus into its ASMALLWORLD memberships to create a positive feedback loop between its social network and its hotel booking engine.

“We plan to bring a loyalty program for the ASMALLWORLD Collection into the ASMALLWORLD memberships, which will allow us to realise synergies between the two sides of the business, resulting in higher overall revenue growth for the company,” comments ASMALLWORLD CEO Jan Luescher.

The ‘ASMALLWORLD Collection’ is now live: www.asmallworldcollection.com