Hotel chains tighten control of online inventory
March 16, 2004 |
After haphazardly building an Internet sales pipeline, the lodging industry sprang a $1-billion US leak - and major hotel chains are now working to plug the hole.
After haphazardly building an Internet sales pipeline, the lodging industry sprang a $1-billion US leak - and major hotel chains are now aggressively working to plug the hole.
The problem began when hotel franchisees signed deals that were too favourable to popular travel websites, which account for the majority of all rooms booked online, and sold rooms at rates that drained the big hotel companies’ profits. But with the dot-com seduction over, the chains are much tougher negotiators, said Bruce Wolff, senior vice president of distribution and sales at Marriott International Inc., the world’s largest lodging company.
“We have no problem with them making money,” Wolff said of the travel websites during an interview at the company’s Bethesda headquarters. “But we needed business terms that were a little better than existed.”
Get the full story at canada.com
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