Nine months ago, an article "For Hotels, There’s No Room Left for Online Travel Agencies" sparked some interesting discussion on HN [1]. Many of the topics discussed informed the development of our new product, Scout.
The perception of many travelers is that the best hotel prices are to be found at the big online travel agencies.
The hotel chains have recently been attempting to alter this perception by offering lower prices when you book via their own websites. This usually requires membership in a loyalty program but they have streamlined sign-up so that you can become a member during the checkout process.
This channel shift is really important for the hotels because they lose so much in commission to the OTAs, not to mention market relevance and a direct relationship with the customer.
Room Key is a joint venture between six of the largest hotel chains in the world and has unique access to these lower direct rates.
We have just launched a new product called Scout, a Chrome browser extension that activates whenever you view a hotel at major OTAs.
Scout looks at the lowest rate being advertised by the OTA and then searches in the background to see if it can find a lower direct rate. If it does, it automatically displays a notification along with a button that takes the user to the hotel's own site to book the lower rate and get additional perks of booking direct (e.g. points, free wifi).
For now the hotels Scout works with are mostly limited to brands belonging to larger chains (Marriott, Hyatt, Wyndham, Choice, IHG). E.g. try looking at a Holiday Inn on Expedia and you're very likely to see a Scout notification.
The OTAs are currently limited to the major players (Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity) but we hope to grow this list to include metasearch engines (Kayak, Trivago, etc) in the near future. We also hope to introduce the extension on other browsers.
I'd appreciate a "how we make money" section on the site. It's not clear how (if?) you do, and that scares me a bit when considering an extension that'll run on sites that take my credit card.
I've spent the last three years building a hotel property management system. I hate OTAs. They are gross middlemen who charge criminally high commissions to hotel operators. And as much as I philosophically support what you're doing here, both Roomkey in general and Scout in particular, you're barking up the wrong tree.
At the point where a customer is searching on Expedia or booking.com, you've lost. These sites have aggressive reward programs and are tuned machines to get people to buy.
The better approach is actual property-level differentiation that makes people want to stay at a particular hotel. If your customer sees hotel inventory as essentially fungible, which is what most of the undifferentiated inventory on booking/expedia is, they're going to pay commodity prices for it.
The chains need to step up and market directly to consumers, and GIVE ME A REASON TO LIKE THEM. Right now it's all sort of meh. Hilton, Hyatt, Rodeway, whatever, I just don't care, give me the lowest price and I'm there.
What I completely don't understand is, I have tried calling hotels directly when looking at the hotels.com/expedia price, and asking if they can give me that rate directly or even a little cheaper. They never can. They always say "you'll have to book it through them" to get that rate. I've tried this at least a dozen times, always with the same answer.
Do these chains have some kind of written agreement with the websites where they are NOT allowed to undercut those prices, ever?
Not wanting to be stupid (ok.. losing battle) but what exactly are these huge expedia rewards? I've done quite a lot of travel and booking through them, and frankly, I am unsure what benefit I've got from it.
If instead it said "Read and change data on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity" then I would be OK with it. But unfortunately they want full access!
manicminer|8 years ago
The perception of many travelers is that the best hotel prices are to be found at the big online travel agencies.
The hotel chains have recently been attempting to alter this perception by offering lower prices when you book via their own websites. This usually requires membership in a loyalty program but they have streamlined sign-up so that you can become a member during the checkout process.
This channel shift is really important for the hotels because they lose so much in commission to the OTAs, not to mention market relevance and a direct relationship with the customer.
Room Key is a joint venture between six of the largest hotel chains in the world and has unique access to these lower direct rates.
We have just launched a new product called Scout, a Chrome browser extension that activates whenever you view a hotel at major OTAs.
Scout looks at the lowest rate being advertised by the OTA and then searches in the background to see if it can find a lower direct rate. If it does, it automatically displays a notification along with a button that takes the user to the hotel's own site to book the lower rate and get additional perks of booking direct (e.g. points, free wifi).
For now the hotels Scout works with are mostly limited to brands belonging to larger chains (Marriott, Hyatt, Wyndham, Choice, IHG). E.g. try looking at a Holiday Inn on Expedia and you're very likely to see a Scout notification.
The OTAs are currently limited to the major players (Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity) but we hope to grow this list to include metasearch engines (Kayak, Trivago, etc) in the near future. We also hope to introduce the extension on other browsers.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14443291
ceejayoz|8 years ago
bedros|8 years ago
eldavido|8 years ago
At the point where a customer is searching on Expedia or booking.com, you've lost. These sites have aggressive reward programs and are tuned machines to get people to buy.
The better approach is actual property-level differentiation that makes people want to stay at a particular hotel. If your customer sees hotel inventory as essentially fungible, which is what most of the undifferentiated inventory on booking/expedia is, they're going to pay commodity prices for it.
The chains need to step up and market directly to consumers, and GIVE ME A REASON TO LIKE THEM. Right now it's all sort of meh. Hilton, Hyatt, Rodeway, whatever, I just don't care, give me the lowest price and I'm there.
degenerate|8 years ago
Do these chains have some kind of written agreement with the websites where they are NOT allowed to undercut those prices, ever?
ggm|8 years ago
jamesshamenski|8 years ago
So no, I cannot 'see lower direct hotel rates as I browse online travel agents'.
The marketing messaging is completely disjointed from what the product actually does.
whitepoplar|8 years ago
jermaustin1|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
upbeatlinux|8 years ago
http://take.ms/ch1TN
Eridrus|8 years ago
degenerate|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
ttul|8 years ago