A New Look at the Direct-Booking Game for Hotel Chains

Jochen Ehrhardt | March 5, 2019

by Jochen Ehrhardt In recent years, hotels have been waging a war on Online Travel Agencies such as Booking.com, Expedia, Ctrip, and Agoda in order to win back their customers by offering a wide range of perks, including discounts, in exchange for booking directly with the hotel. "Book direct" has become the new mantra. As hoteliers found out quickly, luring back consumers is not as easy as they had hoped. The larger OTAs have at least two very powerful arguments in their favor: Users can choose between hundreds of thousands of hotels in a consistent and easy-to-navigate environment. Hotels and hotel groups could not do anything about t...