Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Hotel, Motel Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn is taking control of their internet sales. Holiday Inn is no longer making there rates/bookings available to all inclusive travel websites (ie Expedia, Hotels.com etc...) "Taking back the sales and promotion of their hotel properties gives the hotels the opportunity to develop their marketing communications, customer relationship systems and the customer intuition data that will drive innovation and growth in their businesses." I presume Holiday Inn rates are still available on other site like Travelocity and Orbitz.
Now I go back and forth on this. For one having control over your product, image, data etc is extremely important and some companies are good at that. Southwest is a great example they have always controlled there internet sales. You can only buy their tickets through their website. The downside is you get less exposure and must do more marketing to let people know to get the deals they must come to your website.
I know people that like the centralization of all the hotels on one site and want to compare rates in an instant. I think Holiday Inn can make there website work if it is done correctly.
In broad terms of buzz I cannot say if there is a trend for companies to take control of their sales by only using one website for all sales. But some are "Exhibit A: The Apple Store. Exhibit B: Tupperware pulls out of Target and sticks with their "party" model." C: InterContinental to Cut Expedia, Hotels.com From Online Sales
Link posted by Greg : 4:23 PM
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