Following are highlights from Part One of The Keys to KIWI.  Part 2, in our next issue, will be devoted to KIWI’s ambitions in its travel agency relationships, and a just announced booking initiative with Forbes Traveler. Here’s what Kjellgren had to say on what makes KIWI run:

• Kiwi Collection was a very simple idea. We wanted to solve what we felt was an issue in the travel industry from a traveler perspective- -the ability for high end consumers to find trusted advice. So we simply set out to be the premier source for trusted advice when it comes to the best places to stay around the world
• As of today we’ve assembled about 2,100 hotels in about 140 countries, and no hotel pays to be part of Kiwi Collection. We also exclude hotels if they no longer meet the expectations that we see.
• When it comes to the hotel industry, it’s very confusing for consumers to understand hotel ratings. If you stay in a five-star hotel in Italy it’s one level; if you stay in a five star in Mexico it’s a different one, and five star in the US could be five star by Mobil or it could be, you know, five diamonds by AAA. And there’s no global rating system, there’s nothing that you can really rely on. So we hand pick among all the brands and then just say these are what we believe to be the best places to stay.
• What we have worked toward is to create great relationships with the management teams of all hotels in the Kiwi Collection.  Those relationships lead directly to added value for KIWI customers, and it’s not price.--It’s not always about the luxury experience. It’s about an amazing experience, and for some people that is luxury, and for other people it’s not.

Basically we make money in three ways:

We make commissions when people choose – and I emphasize choose, to book through KIWI. This is important because people have the ability to book online if they want to. They also can pick up the phone and call the hotel directly.  This booking neutrality posture helps to build our total relationship with the hotel . At the same time we would like to see growth in booking through Kiwi Collection,  which would  be better for us from a revenue perspective

We sell books—you’ve seen them—hard cover, coffee table books – Completely 100 percent editorial, weighing about eight pounds each. They cover basically two continents each. They are the Americas, Asia-Pacific and then Europe-Middle East-Africa in the third one. And a lot of hotels purchase these, companies buy them as corporate gifts and also they’re sold retail. So that’s another revenue stream.

Because we have such a big database of consumers going to our website,  and related sites, we use our skills in search engine marketing to help the hotels to gain more visibility,  and that is something for which we do charge. We build stronger bonds, and greater revenue, for our hotel clients and KIWI too.