Axel Hefer, CEO, Trivago, joins Cheddar News to discuss getting the most out of your next trip despite current high hotel rates and inflation.

Opening Bell

One-On-One with Trivago CEO Axel Hefer

So joining us now is axel heifer Ceo of the global accommodation search platform trev ago, I'm glad you're here to help us out a little bit because inflation comes for all of us? And the travel sector is not immune to it. So how are consumers feeling it? And is it slowing them down at all so far? We don't see that much of a slowdown to be honest. And if you're looking at the summer and we've all been looking forward to this summer, a lot of people have saved a lot of money by traveling a lot less or in the last two years going out less dining, partying, etcetera. So there is money um and there is a lot of pent up demand, but we do expect that People will travel less or will also travel to different destinations in the next 12 months. Okay, well while people are traveling, you know baseball legend Yogi Berra once said of a popular restaurant, nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded. So where is that becoming true in the travel industry, it's uh to be honest, I think it's pretty much everywhere because the, in the travel in the travel industry um the industry had basically to shut down and so everywhere capacity was taken out, staffing levels were reduced and we are living living in a world where staffing is tied across many sectors, so there's a shortage of labor pretty much everywhere. Um you feel it at the airport, you feel it at the most popular destinations in the US that's new york city and Las Vegas, but I would say it's pretty much everywhere to a different extent. So where are good places to go? Are other people heading to other destinations instead to try to be more low key. Yeah I mean the the the destination is the key driver to save some money. You can save money on the transportation and what we see lately in the last couple of weeks before the autumn trends that domestic is growing again. So destinations where you can actually go by car where you don't have to fly and you don't have to go through the crowded airports. Um Intercontinental has been soft from a US perspective for quite a while. Um And if you're looking at the US travelers specifically there are basically only three top destinations in the top 20 that are abroad which is Paris London and Rome. That brings up a good point. Um what are the effective ways travelers can save to elevate hotel on elevated hotel rates? Whether it's in high demand is the reason or inflation because you mentioned those three parts, a lot of people may be going there. So how can we save? Yeah I mean there are basically two levers, one is flexibility um where you, you should be flexible if you want to save in terms of time. Um So they're the prices vary quite a bit but then even more so in terms of destinations and said before you control the cost of the transportation that you can then reinvest into the accommodation and the second lever is you need to compare. Um and that's why we're actually looking forward to the next 12 months um quite positively as a business because that's what we do. We help people to compare hotel prices and there are big differences by different providers and probably not going during peak season would help a lot of people to, I went to paris last year when it was cold and it was a lot cheaper to do it that way. But there are there any other good resources that we can look into for hotel savings? I know trev ago maybe one of them but any other good resources I would say try was the best but I have to say that right go there and search, are there any special things we can do while we're searching on your search engine that help us be more effective in our search? Yeah I mean the two particularly if you're going to big destinations, there are a lot of different hotels and so it definitely helps to narrow it down what is really the most important thing to you but don't narrow down too much because then you know you can't compare as much so um is it really location is that the quality of the hotel and really think about what is really important and what is driving the quality of your experience and what is more nice to have and if you sacrifice on some of the nice to have you can you can save a lot of money still even in the current market. Well you mentioned that europe is very popular some of the top three locations there. So should american travelers be looking to cash in now on the european vacation with a dollar stronger than the euro. Yeah. I don't know. It all depends on the future exchange rate. I have to have to be honest. I'm I think europe will it's much tougher for europe to get out of the current difficult environment than for the U. S. Because there the war is obviously in europe and the effect of the war is much more direct. Um The the means to counter inflation in the european union um and by the european central bank are more complicated than in one country in the U. S. So I mean either you go now or you hope that the exchange rate will become even better and you you bet on the on improvement for next year but definitely it got much cheaper compared to the last couple of years. Yeah well let's hope that everybody can just get somewhere and travel where they want to go and get their safe. Thank you so much axle. Helfer Ceo of Trev ago