Whilst the distribution landscape has seen the growing importance of OTAs, travelers now increasingly shop and book from new emerging channels such as search and meta-search engines, as well as social media sites.
As part of the European Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) conference held in Berlin (November 14-16, 2011) where Hospitality experts from hotel chains and the technology vendor community shared the latest technological advancements that shape the industry, Amadeus presented its perspective on the impacts of search engines and OTAs on hotel systems.
Whilst the distribution landscape has seen the growing importance of OTAs (Online Travel Agencies), travelers now increasingly shop and book from new emerging channels such as search and meta-search engines, as well as social media sites. As smartphones and tablets are more sophisticated, a wide range of travel and hotel apps create new and more addictive shopping capabilities for travelers. While guests are looking for information and convenience, the norm now is to surf all these new multiple sources of information and at the same time, compare results to find the best hotel, the best deal, the best location and the best amenities, etc. that will match what we expect from our hotel stay. As we anticipate a growth of on-line direct and indirect channels to generate more than 50% of hotel reservations by 2020, we also anticipate that meta search players will increasingly be involved in the search process and that they might be used in 20% of the cases.
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