But, last week’s article (Broken down, how OTAs are eating hotel business) really resonated because it reflects a growing feeling that we’ve detected among our hotelier partners that OTAs really are eating into the sales that hotels would like to be making direct.
It’s fair to say that there is some debate around that point because clearly OTAs serve a purpose that the hotels’ own websites don’t themselves. That purpose is choice and choice is something you can’t provide comprehensively with a single offering.
However, there is no doubt that some proportion of consumers would use an OTA for convenience and value for money even when they know which hotel they are likely to book. That is unquestionably cannibalisation of direct sales.
Read full story at: http://www.tnooz.com/article/hotel-distribution-flash-sales/