Articles tagged “direct booking”

Despite years of marketing campaigns to drive direct bookings, our look at hotel distribution shows that little has changed for most hotels and that driving room nights via first-party channels remains a difficult uphill battle.

In Skift's top stories this week, we covered the Maldives' experiment with new tourism models, the blurring of work and travel, Priceline's acquisition of an airline technology startup, and a Skift research analysis of hotel direct booking.

Despite years of hotels pushing direct booking campaigns, third parties remain a crucial part of hotel distribution strategy. Learn how many bookings each distribution channel delivers, at what cost, and the outlook for direct bookings in this report.

In this Skift Loyalty and Subscription Summit video, Chris Anderson, Professor at Cornell University, and Geoffrey Ryskamp, Global Head of Hospitality, Travel & Leisure at Medallia, discuss findings from new research and offer tips on how to leverage post-stay engagement as part of the customer retention cycle.

Years ago, before it acquired Viator, Tripadvisor was purely an advertising/media company. Today, with its big bet on the Tripadvisor Plus subscription program, the company is becoming much more of a hybrid advertising/booking site. That is certainly one of the calculations that the hotel industry is considering.

In our top travel stories this week, Skift Editorial and Skift Research covered Airbnb and short-term rentals from every angle. Our most popular stories also included the latest acquisition of Lonely Planet, an interview with former Continental Airlines CEO Gordon Bethune, and the false hope of digital passports.

Before the pandemic turned the world sideways, nearly 12 percent of Airbnb's revenue last year came from its top 10 cities. But among them, cities like Lisbon and San Diego are taking radical steps to limit their short-term rental portfolios. Are investors overlooking the likelihood of vastly more stringent regulations?

Early data shows that hotels' direct bookings are gaining market share during the pandemic, with both brand.com and phone making ground during this time of lower demand. Is this permanent, and if so, which other channels will lose out?

The hotel distribution landscape is complex, with hotel rooms being sold and promoted in many different channels. Covid-19 has certainly impacted how and where hotel rooms are being distributed, but it is unlikely this disruption will be sustained long-term. That’s not to say that disruption isn’t coming, though.

With thousands of hotels going out of business and up for sale, and vacation rentals business booming in certain destinations, there will be a ton of disruption and convergence in hospitality. Savvy short-term rental operators can pick off some direct bookings, but the mega online travel agencies will hardly notice.