A few months ago we wrote an article stating that the hotel franchise model is dead. Looking at the innovation of the last year in online marketing and distribution we can take this statement a bit further.

2010 will be the year of the independent hotel and direct sales!

So why will be 2010 be the year of DIRECT SALES and the INDEPENDENT HOTEL?

First of all this is kind of a contradiction. The reason that 2010 will be the year of the independent hotel is partially to thank to the resurgence of the OTA and Travel Merchant model. The current economic challenges in the market have allowed 3rd party travel agency websites to regain a larger % of online travel distribution.

The OTA distribution channels have made the franchise chain complacent. They easily produce the same number of bookings and revenues or more that the franchise chains. Looking at the paid advertising section of search engines like Google and Yahoo, the strong presence of OTA's reflects this.

Shopping around on any of the travel agency websites, we have started to notice that more and more hotels listed on the first are independent properties, or belong to local or smaller hotel groups. Something tells us that the global chains and larger hotel groups have been pushing quite persistently over the last few years to bring commission levels down over the last few years that the OTA's prefer to list properties with which they yield a larger margin.

But also on meta-search sites like Trivago and even Bing Travel independent hotels are starting to float to the top more and more. On some sites and destinations they even significantly outweigh the number of ‘big brand' chain properties. Just check TripAdvisor for the top 20 hotels in London, Paris and San Francisco. The independents are starting to rule the charts….

And even when doing a search in Google for Hotel London, Hotels Amsterdam, hotels in New York, etc gives comparable results. Independent hotels seem to dominate the online real estate.

For more information click here: www.xotels.com or contact;
Patrick Landman

Email: patrick@xotels.com
Phone: + 34 931 824 537
Skype: plandman