Travel
Search Engines Turn Up the Heat for Hotels
Released on
= December 11, 2004, 7:20 pm
Press Release
Author = Hotel Sales Online
Industry = Internet
& Online
Press Release
Summary = The hotel industry, already struggling to cope with the
popularity of Internet reservations among customers, now faces further
pressure from the development of 'Travel Search'.
Press Release
Body = Dublin, Ireland: December 11, 2004 -- The hotel industry,
already struggling to cope with the popularity of Internet reservations
among customers, now faces further pressure from the development
of 'Travel Search'.
Travel search
engines are a new development in Internet travel, and include Sidestep
(www.sidestep.com), Yahoo's Farechase (www.farechase.com) and Mobissimo
(www.mobissimo.com), with AOL planning to launch its own travel
search engine in
2005. They operate like referral services, searching the Internet
for the lowest prices and receiving a commission for every sale
they make.
The price transparency
that travel search engines make possible puts additional price-pressure
on hoteliers, who are already paying commissions on an increasing
percentage of their bookings coming through online travel agents
such as
Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz.
"By using
travel search engines, customers can now scan the lowest prices
available for a particular city or hotel", said Graham Caswell,
CEO of Hotel Sales Online, an Internet marketing company specialising
in the hotel industry. "The whole business model of travel
search is to help the consumer find the lowest possible price, so
this development can only increase price competition in the hotel
industry".
"Everybody
wants the lowest possible price and its easy to compare hotel room
prices, especially on the Internet", said Caswell. "The
problem is that every hotel is different, and offers different facilities,
different levels of service and a different location. In order to
emphasise these differences and avoid having their hotel rooms turned
into commodities, hoteliers must communicate with the customer directly",
he said.
The Internet
has revolutionized hotel marketing, as more and more hotel customers
prefer to book online. However many hoteliers, particularly from
individual hotels and small hotel groups, have found it difficult
to connect with Internet customers directly and so rely on various
travel intermediaries for an increasing percentage of their bookings.
/ENDS
About Hotel
Sales Online:
Hotel Sales Online provides Internet marketing and consulting services
for the hotel industry to enable hotels to increase the bookings
that they receive directly from customers, through their own websites.
Located near Dublin, Ireland, Hotel Sales
Online also publishes an extensive website about all aspects of
hotel Internet marketing.
Web Site = http://www.hotelsalesonline.com
Contact Details
= Graham Caswell
Hotel Sales Online
57 Ferrybank,
Arklow,
Co. Wicklow,
Ireland
Tel: +353-402-31314
caswell@hotelsalesonline.com
http://www.hotelsalesonline.com
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