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For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

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Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#111

Post by nunez »

mindcrime wrote: post #85
barrkel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would reduce the hotel's value proposition to a commodity. It would only work for the most impersonal of hotels, the hotel equivalent of McDonalds, competing on price and standardized features. The kinds of hotel you wouldn't want to stay at, if you had a choice.

I no longer travel frequently for business, but when I was a consultant I was constantly traveling around the US and staying in various hotels. I would say that to a large extent, I always saw them as just commodities. I only had one or two pet issues that occasionally cropped up, but 99% of the time I didn't care a lick about the "brand" of the hotel, nor did I want to. Maybe it's different for recreational traveler…

I am currently a traveling consultant, and I now care very much about staying at Hilton properties because I have Diamond status and get better rooms at lower prices and free Wi-Fi. I know I could stay anywhere else and expense these expenses, but why would I?

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#112

Post by nunez »

falsedan wrote: post #34
stupidcar wrote: post #21

If hotel chains were managed by sensible, tech-aware people, they wouldn't bother with these expensive, rearguard marketing campaigns. Instead, they'd get together and form an industry working group, and design simple, standard data formats and querying/booking APIs, and then make all their data available through them. This would make it far easier to build a hotel search engine, which would cause an explosion of com…

> they'd get together and form an industry working group, and design simple, standard data formats and querying/booking APIs, and then make all their data available through them Are you familiar with SABRE/AMEDEUS? The flight industry did exactly this and it's been a disaster for them. Heck, they even handle hotel bookings as well.

really?

every single airline uses a common messaging format for reservations, routing and itinerary generation BECAUSE of SABRE/Amadeus and doesn't have to roll their own systems to do it.

please tell me how this is disastrous.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#113

Post by nunez »

caw wrote: post #41
tallanvor wrote: post #33

“There had been this perception that to get the best price, you book through a different channel than going direct,” he said. “That’s never actually been the case.” Yeah, that's a load of crap. I always start with an aggregator, and if I find a place that I like, I check their website as well. Unless they're cheaper or offer some major perks, I book through the 3rd party site. Of the last 5 hotels I've booked, going…

A few months ago I booked a hotel for a trip. I checked the 3rd parties, found a hotel and then tried to go direct. HHonors claims the best prices online if you're logged in--it was the same as the booking third party (Groupon Getaways via Expedia), except Groupon gave 10% back in Groupon Bucks. I arrived at the hotel, they noted my HHonors basic membership and mentioned I wasn't receiving points due to booking with…

They are right.

Hotels will almost always match lowest rate because they care much more about having low vacancy and not having to pay booking.com for your reservation. And you won't sacrifice points or chances at upgrades.

Booking.com is a good way of finding low prices that hotels will match.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#114

Post by losteverything »

It seems like since aggregators prices have gone up across the board.

There used to be the $19.99 best western in Mississippi but now you cant touch anything for under 50. Flipping through the BW directory was very enjoyable.

It was quite fun to grab that $14.99 holiday inn room " great rate" because i was an 800 number expert.

We still go to a dinky place in Maine off the grid ($39 off season with dogs/$89 in).. I hope they never sell.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#115

Post by xadhominemx »

skinnymuch wrote: post #104
xadhominemx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many hotel search engines out there already, and I don't really understand why new search engines would pick up meaningful market share. The priceline and expedia web properties (Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Travelocity, trivago, etc.) have pretty decent customer loyalty, a lot of app downloads, and highly optimized customer acquisition and conversion.

Couldn't you have said the same thing about Agoda, Kayak, and Momondo? All of the other Priceline and Expedia/TripAdvisor properties are from before the 2001 bubble. Most in the mid to late 90s. The three newer companies I mentioned all came in the mid 00s. And the latter two acquired for good money. Hipmunk came around this decade. But no clue on how good the acquisition is. Trip.com and HotelTonight are the last tw…

The difference is vs the '00's is the big sites have 1) scale (= operating leverage and the best deals with hotel chains and better SEO), 2) years' of data and testing (which leads to higher conversion and an ability to pay more for inorganic traffic than newcomers), and 3) organic traffic (which subsidizes inorganic traffic).

HotelTonight fills a niche but I think the market they play in is pretty small.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#116

Post by jghn »

briandear wrote: post #46

I feel compelled to respond since I am on both sides of the hotel business.. I own a tiny hotel in the Luberon and I also fly about 50k miles per year (staying in hotels along the way.) Booking.com has been amazing for us. They take 15% but it is completely worth it. We don't have "a name" nor do I have time to invest in the relentless SEO content marketing necessary to differentiate us when people search "hotels in…

FWIW I have seen it recommended multiple times, including from hosts, that it is polite to ask a host if they have availability via airbnb even with the instant booking enabled. I agree with you but if that message is as widespread as I've assumed it could explain what you see

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#117

Post by an_account »

mbaha wrote: post #44
stupidcar wrote: post #21

If hotel chains were managed by sensible, tech-aware people, they wouldn't bother with these expensive, rearguard marketing campaigns. Instead, they'd get together and form an industry working group, and design simple, standard data formats and querying/booking APIs, and then make all their data available through them. This would make it far easier to build a hotel search engine, which would cause an explosion of com…

I completely agree. To those pointing out the Sabre/Amadeus "debacle", a few benefits as a reminder: * To innovate, the GDS only think about how the messaging should be differently handled. * To buy a ticket, an airline/travel agent uses almost the same syntax throughout the world (this is a miracle, when you can't even order cabs in the same manner in the world). * Airline companies implement similar interfaces (bet…

Large hotel chain are starting to become tech aware themselves. Why would they let some other company take 30% of their revenue when they can do it themselves now?

That's massive revenue, not "breadcrums". Certainly hotels shouldn't avoid that revenue just because it might "insult" a different company.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#118

Post by what_ever »

nunez wrote: post #113
caw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few months ago I booked a hotel for a trip. I checked the 3rd parties, found a hotel and then tried to go direct. HHonors claims the best prices online if you're logged in--it was the same as the booking third party (Groupon Getaways via Expedia), except Groupon gave 10% back in Groupon Bucks. I arrived at the hotel, they noted my HHonors basic membership and mentioned I wasn't receiving points due to booking with…

They are right. Hotels will almost always match lowest rate because they care much more about having low vacancy and not having to pay booking.com for your reservation. And you won't sacrifice points or chances at upgrades. Booking.com is a good way of finding low prices that hotels will match.

Hotel aggregators are best places to find low prices not booking.com. It's possible that Expedia family of sites have better deals which you won't see on booking.com. So TripAdvisor and Trivago are better.

Disclosure: Used to work at TripAdvisor.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#119

Post by what_ever »

gt2 wrote: post #26

What is the best priced 3rd party service currently? I use hotels.com because I find it has the lowest price usually, plus you effectively get 10% off since every 10 bookings you receive a credit worth the average of your previous 10 night stays. But I wonder if theres a better booking service out there than this for someone who books a lot of hotels.

TripAdvisor/Trivago - compare the rates there. Mentally apply the loyalty discounts and pick whichever is the cheapest. Also, I may be biased here as I used to work at TripAdvisor but I personally prefer their UI to booking/priceline. Expedia is okay too and I have heard good things about Trivago.

Re: For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies

#120

Post by Grue3 »

jaclaz wrote: post #83
Grue3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But consider that there's basically zero chance that I (as a typical user) will book a hotel if it's not listed at booking.com. Just because I must read real guests' impressions of the hotel to avoid the ones with bad Wi-fi. That's much more valuable service than what travel agencies provide, so it makes sense it costs more.

Maybe we are talking of two different kinds of travel/hotel agencies. Once upon a time there were travel agents that put their name (and face) upfront to the customer, guaranteeing when they recommended (and booked in behalf of) a given hotel (or vector/transport), they usually knew (from direct experience or from "verified" reports) the qualities of the suggested hotel or travel arrangement. And - just for your inte…

>the "real" adjective when talking of guests impressions reported on booking.com (and much, much worse than that on tripadvisor) is something that needs to be attributed with more than a pinch of salt.

I have personally reviewed every single hotel I stayed in, and none of my comments were removed or altered in any way. Which I sadly cannot say about HN.

(I have a suspicion that the overall hotel rating might be fake, and I rarely pay attention to it, but in my experience the reviews are spot on)

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