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Hotels Now See Online Travel Sites as Rivals (marketwatch.com)
Major hotel chains are engaging in an online turf war with the very travel sites that have helped drive their businesses. From a report: Marriott, Hilton and InterContinental are using extensive marketing campaigns to claw back business from Expedia, Priceline and other travel-booking sites, which steer customers to hotel properties but also take commissions of up to 30% for each reservation. The chains are starting to treat these sites less as valuable business partners and more as gatekeepers standing between them and their customers. Many large hotel brands are offering lower nightly rates and other perks to loyalty members who book directly through their sites instead of online travel agencies. [...] The new battle is the latest episode in a two-decade "frenemy"-style relationship between online travel agencies and the hotel industry. Sites such as Expedia and Priceline were crucial for hotels during down periods such as after 9/11, but they have gradually eaten into the share of overall bookings ever since. Also read: Why Bargain Travel Sites May No Longer Be Bargains.
I've tried that a few times. When it's an independent hotel it often works, but for chains... forget about it. These ones that complain about paying a 30% commission refuse to give you a 10% discount if booking directly.
So well, fuck them.
I have a feeling that this is just the industry catching up. Airlines used to need the services of travel agents and would pay them a commission to sell tickets. This was because they had no or limited capacity to sell seats directly to the public. Once they got this capability, airlines stopped paying commissions and travel agencies either went out of business or specialized in areas where they could still make money. Hotels are a much higher margin business than airlines, and are much more inclined to increase occupancy at the expense of lower room rates, so it makes sense that they would pay commissions to get someone on the property and spending money. I know when I travel for business I'm much less cost-conscious than I would be if I were a vacationer, so hotels do make a lot of money once travelers are on-site.
I'm in technology and most tech people are all for squeezing every single inefficiency out of every system out there. And it is true that there are a lot of brokers and middlemen out there - ask anyone who just bought a house or car for examples. What I wonder is whether tightening the screws so much that you start to affect employment in significant ways is such a good idea. You can have a 100% efficient process, but if your profit relies on people having a disposable income to buy your products, does it make sense to leave some slack in the system?
The real disconnect is that Travelers want to buy a trip(airfare, car rental, hotel, attraction), Hoteliers want to sell a stay.
Even more importantly, business travelers aren't generally allowed to buy anything other than a Trip, they have to use some Travel Management Company who is essentially an Online Travel Agent but with a shitty interface and a corporate policy enforcement.
American Express is disrupting the Agent/hotel infrastructure right now by allowing hotels to pay a flat annual "commission replacement" instead of a per room night commission, when nights are booked using AMEX's corporate Travel Management Company. This of course locks them in to the agent model further, but makes the pill a bit sweeter. The "book direct" push is a bit wrong-headed as the Airlines have already opened central booking, such that it is a no-brainer for a website to add flights and hotels together, whereas hotels are almost never going to be able to tack on airfare without becoming full service travel agents.
Book direct seems like a no-brainer, until you look at how travel is planned and purchased in the real world.
And none of that is even counting the fact that all the big hotel chains still run their businesses on 30 year old platforms with no end in sight.
Booking non-refundable rooms for the guaranteed low price is also primed for an upset from the reselling app standpoint. If you book a $200 dollar non-refundable room... then you can't make it... you can auction it off on Roomer or others... selling it to someone for $150 recovering some of your loss... And undercutting the "lowest rate" promise at the exact same time.
The whole thing is a mess and direct booking won't solve it... and may make it worse.
They seem to think that everybody knows which hotels are located in, let's say Buttfuck, Idaho and know which one is the best, cheapest or with the best location or facilities.
That's not the case.
I use them to _find_ the fuckers in the first place, without those sites, their hotels would be half empty.