Articles tagged “hotel direct”

Hotel companies pay billions a year to online travel agencies and other distributors. Our estimate of how much is eye-opening. So is hoteliers' naiveté about how sustainable their level of spending is.

Lufthansa's test partnership may or may not work out. But what's certain is that all major travel rewards programs have broad opportunities to use their customer databases in ways that luxury retailers such as Aston Martin and Omega will actually like.

Serent Capital was an investing chaperone to Revinate's acquisition of Navis. Its thesis is that the technological stars have finally aligned to produce many of the business intelligence breakthroughs that hotel companies have long sought.

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.

Imagine there's no distribution. It's easy if you try. Imagine there's no commission. All bookings, peer-to-peer. You may say Fetch.Ai is a dreamer. But it's not the only one. This startup hopes someday you'll join it, and hotels will sell as one.

Direct bookings have been harder for smaller hotels and mom-and-pop tour operators to get than for the big guys. Still, tech providers, such as Sojern, Xola, and Destinia, aim to democratize online marketing tools.

Hotel industry to consumers: You should still stop clicking around, (obviously!), but you should also expect a lot more from us when you (1) book direct with us, (2) join our loyalty programs, and (3) stay in our hotels.

We still think there's a pretty good chance that we'll see Expedia-branded hotels in the near future if not sooner.

There ain't no such thing as a free booking.