News & Stories

The Hague. The new Dutch startup bidroom.com wants to disrupt Booking.com's and Expedia's "stranglehold" by connecting hotels directly with guests. But despite its fresh concept which leads hoteliers into a bidding competition to win over the future guest, its chances to actually harm the giant OTAs seem to be unrealistic.

Cologne. The global hotel solutions provider HRS has invested in the Australian company The Lido Group through a strategic partnership, thus continuing its global expansion in the corporate business.

Amsterdam. Though the first quarter 2016 was okay, Online Travel Agents share less enthusiasm for the next coming months. From Priceline and TripAdvisor to Expedia, all three leaders have reasons to believe that Q2 will not be as exciting financially. Their CEOs find a lot of reasons to blame the market and justify declining figures in the groups' own reports.

London. On Wednesday Booking.com announced the release of its new Booking Messages interface, a chat-inspired communication platform that enables customers and accommodation providers to effortlessly connect with each other from the moment a booking is made.

Paris. While Marriott, Hyatt or Hilton are spending millions on TV campaigns inviting future guests to book direct, AccorHotels has chosen to play the OTA game and launched its own booking platform. That was almost a year ago. Today, just like a "boutique OTA", the marketplace has recruited a thousand new independent partners who have agreed to co-exist along with AccorHotels' own brands and luxury apartments from Onefinestay’s portfolio, which will soon be joining the platform. After a slow start, Accor's unusual proposal to open up its booking platform to competition, seems to finally be tempting a certain profile of hoteliers eager to multiply distribution channels in total transparency, while keeping control over customer data. During ITB, Sarah Douag met with Guillaume de Marcillac and Jean-Luc Chrétien, co-CEOs of Fastbooking, the entity in charge of the marketplace. How it works, what's in the contract, commission rate, loyalty program, data protection, digital innovations…they explained all the details and gave us a hint about future developments.

Vienna. A start-up in Vienna is launching a new booking platform for hoteliers in Austria and Germany. Entry provision: nine euros per booking, but the guests need to find the lowest price on their own.

London. SiteMinder just published its top ten revenue-generating booking sites of 2015. And is ranked at three itself.

New York. There are an estimated 480 hotel bookings per minute in the United States according to the American Hotel Association. Everybody wants them, so "booking scams" have become popular. Hotels, OTAs, review sites, P2P platforms, third parties, etc. are doing everything to ensure they will secure the highest number of bookings. Playing fair is a detail here. Hoteliers around the world are facing many hurdles on their way. One of them is "booking scams", a nasty practice which continues to spread, ruining the client booking experience and very often the client's relationship with the hotel.

Paris. Watching Airbnb's business behavior for a long time, it becomes obvious that the P2P platform's ultimate weapon in its war against city legislators/regulators and hotel unions has become lobbying. Airbnb tries to influence the "influencers" and decision makers – by presenting its own studies at the United States Conference of Mayors for instance. Former administration officials of the US government have allegedly joined Airbnb trying to turn hosts and guests into unionists and protesters. On the hotel side, CBRE Hotels US has developed an "Airbnb Competition Index" giving the hotel industry a more precise idea about its position.

Amsterdam. After more than a decade comfortably relying on OTAs, hoteliers have realized that they have lost direct contact with their guests. Now Triptease steps in – a tech startup that focuses on helping hoteliers build up the relationship they traditionally had with the customers – precisely, to help them in acquiring and converting direct bookings. Triptease also tracks user behavior in real time and tries to prevent users from leaving the website. Sarah Douag asked Charlie Osmond, co-founder and "Chief Tease" at Triptease about the issue of direct bookings, the tools his company provides and his hopes for the future of independent hotels.