As OTA Giants Rise, Google & Amazon Wait Their Turn

Sarah Harkness | September 9, 2015

By Sarah Harkness In the never ending battle between hotels and online travel agents, the first quarter of 2015 saw OTAs gaining valuable ground. Already, the distribution channel which includes players like Expedia, Hotels.com, et al experienced the largest jump in bookings ever. While Brand.com sites saw 7.1% year-on-year gains, OTAs more than doubled that number with a 15.1% increase according to Eye for Travel. As these monsters continue eating up smaller competitors through mergers and acquisitions, hotel brand.com marketing efforts are struggling to keep up with the spend afforded to the Expedias of the world. As a matter of fact,...