The third millennium is totally under the sign of new online communications and acquisitions tools. Today the Internet channel continues to show increasingly strong business growth as a distribution channel, but tension nonetheless exists between the different players and their different senses of logic. Having invested heavily in developing the awareness, online travel agencies make hoteliers pay a high price for their bookings. As owners of room supplies, hotel groups do not wish to let go of their control. Technology also provides new solutions by simplifying planning and rate policy management.
The current slump has not affected the growth of the major online distributors. Quite the contrary… “Looking for good rates, means going to Internet. The year 2009 will have been a good one because we benefited from the growing interest of both mass and professional clientele,” remarks Olivier Mouchet, sales director at HRS France. Of course the sector did not succeed in proving to be totally impermeable to the global economy’s tribulations. The growing number of online transactions was partly offset by the market’s deep decline. “We did not have the double digit growth we had previously. With the crisis, we had more reservations, but with smaller baskets and shorter stays,” observes Eric Reboul, associate of Webstore, promoter of Federal Hotel.The same observation was made by most Online Travel Agents (OTA), starting with the sector’s giant Expedia that, in the third trimester 2009, posted 27% growth in nights and a drop in revenue per night across all its sites. Nonetheless, the difficult period traversed by all hoteliers worldwide was favorable to allthese actors in another way: recruitment of new clients. “Since the period was difficult, hoteliers adopted every means to increase their occupancy,” remarks Jean-Louis Boss, VP Marketing at Fastbooking. “We had more than 1,200 new hotels in 2009 versus 850 in 2008 to achieve a total of 5,200 hotels at present, 900 of which are in France and 1,000 in Asia.”What is true for players positioned on the Leisure segment is also true of specialists positioned on a business segment seduced by the perspective of substantial savings on their travel budgets. “Since the beginning of 2009 requests for appointments by companies have multiplied, whereas until then they were still in the consideration stage. They were seeking a rapid unfurling of solutions. Thanks to our interfacing with self-booking tools such...
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