Trivago Urges Independent Hotels to Get More Involved in Digital Marketing
Skift Take
Public companies rarely take on projects where the benefits may not appear for years to come. So kudos to Trivago for risking that with its marketing tools for hotels. That said, the effort is still a risk.
Trivago, the hotel-search company, faces a tough calculus when it comes to wooing independent hotels to list inventory on its marketplace.
Axel Hefer, Trivago's chief financial officer and managing director, described the problem -- and the company's attempted fix -- in an interview.
In brief, the strategy of Trivago, a Düsseldorf-based company that is partly owned by Expedia, Inc., is to appeal to independent hotels with marketing tools.
"Generally speaking, very few of the independents are active in online marketing," Hefer said. "Primarily they sign up with online travel agencies [OTAs] and let the OTAs do the work. So what we have set up is give them tools to help them become comfortable with do-it-yourself marketing decisions."
Hefer says "Trivago's key objective for the Hotel Manager tool is making contact with
