Maintaining the value of the customer relationship is a determining factor for hoteliers who are lucky enough to welcome their customers for at least one night. But the path to this overnight stay is multiple and sometimes certain shortcuts deprive the hotelier of high-value information, such as contacts or bank details of his customer. Faced with ever-increasing costs, distribution is also a way of increasing margins, by lowering the commissions earned by OTAs on the one hand and by increasing the chances of making additional sales on the other.
A sector in the midst of structuring
It is not only among the hardware manufacturers that structuring is in order. On the software side, the ranks are also growing closer together, as shown by recent acquisition announcements. On 6 March, Travelsoft, the parent company of Orchestra, announced the purchase of its Spanish competitor Travel Compositor. This is the group's second acquisition after a German competitor in June 2022, with the aim of taking the lead on the European market via other acquisitions. In addition to the market influence of the former Travel Compositor in Southern Europe, Travelsoft is buying technologies that will enable it to offer more services to agencies, such as multi-destination reservations.
On the outdoor hotel side, camping.com is also looking to expand following a €27 million fundraising. It acquired the Dutch Bungalow Booker at the end of 2022, giving it a solid foothold in one of the most promising markets for the outdoor hotel industry. The company generated €130 million in business in 2022 and expects to reach €200 million in 2023 thanks to the 4,500 campsites in 9 countries distributed by the platform.
The "traditional" OTAs have benefited greatly from tourists' appetite for travel. Booking Holdings has announced record results in 2022, 13% higher than in 2019. These results provide the giant with liquidity and allow it to envisage its development potentially also beyond organic growth. Booking.com, through its CEO, has announced new features. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Glenn Fogel said he wanted to develop payment and customer review functionalities. This is a way to further expand its influence and to capture even more data from end customers.
There is still room for the holiday and leisure search industry to structure itself, especially at a time when these services are increasingly seen...
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