Start-up David against the Corona Goliath: With a hotel aid package, the Viennese start-up Midnightdeal would like to support the ailing hotel industry in renting out as many rooms as possible immediately after the lockdown. 

The young company takes a slightly different approach: Midnightdeal is the only booking platform in Europe to offer hotel rooms at the price of your choice. Users decide whether they choose the cheap instant price or submit an individual price for the hotel booking as a bid using the slider. As with an auction, the best bids are awarded at midnight. In this playful way, the start-up was able to fill thousands of hotel rooms within a few days after the first lockdown in spring 2020.

Users bid for their hotel at the price they want, especially last-minute: during the week there is a surcharge for the room - on the weekend they travel. "Our platform is agile and with the gamification approach is not only geared towards an immediate need for travel - it also encourages you to play along and secure your personal special price," says Lukas Zirker, CEO and founder of Midnightdeal. “Experts consider our model to be crisis-proof and say that it is a concept that Corona plays into the cards,” he explains. Investors also see it this way: The travel start-up with its headquarters on Vienna's Rathausplatz even secured a six-figure investment in the pandemic year 2020 and was able to expand.

And this is how the aid package works for ailing hoteliers: Hotels can post their offers online on Midnightdeal free of charge, the start-up also waives the hotel commission for the next few months. A special focus of Midnightdeal's support is on smaller, family-run hotels from Austria, which have been particularly hard hit in recent months. Hotel owners can rely on www.business.midnightdeal.com sign up for the aid package. In these difficult times, Zirker is optimistic: "We assume that we will return to pre-crisis levels by May 2021 at the latest and plan to triple our sales this year."