LAST-MINUTE, USE OR NOT?

The International Hotel Investment Forum was held on March 14^th, Wednesday in Berlin. Although the hotel distribution field is very complex, but distribution channel is effective or not finally depends on a simple factor: value. On the Forum, the experts from different fields have come up with a same conclusion that if a channel doesn’t offer value, then hoteliers shouldn’t use that channel to yield inventory.

Cyril Ranque, senior VP of global lodging for Expedia, said that the key is for hoteliers to view each third-party distributor as an individual piece in the overall pie. One OTA does not a good channel mix make; adding OTAs bring great complementary business.

Participants in the discussion all think the distribution field has a most significant trend that is more and more consumers take reservations of the Last-minute products. 70% of the mobile reservations on Hotel.com happened the same day. That’s a disturbing trend for hoteliers, especially if hoteliers use discounts as a means to unload room inventory on the day of arrival. OTAs just offer a platform for hoteliers to market their products so that the pricing and promotions are totally determined by hotel managers. If the hotel would like to increase the brand value in order to improve profitability, the manager should not take discount as a marketing strategy. When consumers really want to check in, they will carry on the reservation. The hotel should hold practical attitude towards consumer behavior.


In our point of view, the profit is the final target of hoteliers, though the last-minute bookings by OTAs sometime make them confused, they still benefit from such distribution channel. Use last-minute booking to reveals the hotel characteristics is a good choice for independent boutique hotels. They use this low cost and high speed way in distribution to bring more objective profits to the hotel. The financial crisis years ago bring the hotel industry a fatal blow, but now, many new hotels opening in that period of time were gradually recovered from the crisis. They need a platform to show its own brand and characteristics, to achieve quick profit, Last Minute might be a good choice.


Keywords: International Hotel Investment Forum, OTA, Last-minute


Sources: HotelNewsNow.com - Vital information for hotel decision maker. (2012, 3 15). Distribution experts share key to success. Retrieved 3 17, 2012, from http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/articles.aspx/7721/Distribution-experts-share-key-to-success