Travel Megatrends 2019: Consolidation Creates Travel Brand Bullies
Skift Take
In a rush to scale, consolidated travel companies find themselves with outsized market share that often leads to muscling consumers to their advantage. With no good alternatives, how will travelers react to the pressure?
The last 20 years have been an unprecedented period of consolidation for the travel industry, particularly in North America.
The tangle of major U.S. airlines was whittled down to three following a period of economic contraction a decade ago, while hotel chains Marriott International and Hilton Hotels & Resorts have scooped up competitors in an unprecedented manner. International investment groups, likewise, have bought up and sold off various hotel assets during the same time period.
The quest for scale has only intensified in markets dominated by few players with the wherewithal to push for financial and geographic domination. How these companies choose to deploy their market-shaping power, however, causes frustration and angst for consumers. It also limits resources devoted to developing new solutions that could ease the travel booking process and improve the travel experience itself for customers.
These bullies tend to move in lockstep, one-upping each other in ways that drive revenue and geographic expansion at the expense of consumer experience. If travelers have no choice but to use your travel services, making them pay more for less becomes a competitive imperative. It also becomes less important to create powerful, disruptive services if the corporate focus is on incremental revenue and usership growth.
The airline sector, in particular, shows a follow-the-leader mentality where
