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Major hotel groups are intensifying efforts to get customers to book directly, as they seek to save on commissions paid to online platforms and prepare for the rise of artificial intelligence \u201cagents\u201d. <\/p>\n
Marriott, the world\u2019s largest hotel company, last month said its Bonvoy loyalty programme, which registers all customers who do not use intermediaries, had almost 260mn members by the end of September, up 18 per cent from a year earlier. <\/p>\n
Rivals such as Hilton, Hyatt and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts have also boosted direct bookings by using technology and more attractive perks. Hilton has made it easier for customers to reach elite loyalty status and agreed partnerships, including with MSC Cruises\u2019 luxury division Explora Journeys, that enable members to spend points outside its portfolio.<\/p>\n
Operators have long complained about the fees imposed by online travel agents (OTAs) such as Expedia and Booking.com, which typically take a cut of between 15 per cent and 25 per cent, and see the push for direct sales as crucial to taking fuller advantage of the arrival of advanced AI.<\/p>\n
AI \u201cagents\u201d \u2014 autonomous bots capable of arranging travel for users \u2014 could provide hotel groups a cheaper alternative to online travel agents. But they could also divert business away from the big brands by making customers less conscious of brand recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerative AI is shifting travel planning from traditional search into more conversational and agent-led environments. So that makes building relationships [with customers] a bit more strategic and important,\u201d said Chema Basterrechea, chief operations officer at Radisson Hotel Group.<\/p>\n
Boosting direct bookings could help Radisson capture more guest data and offer \u201ca much more personalised experience\u201d that encourages repeat business, Basterrechea said. <\/p>\n
Marriott\u2019s chief financial officer Leeny Oberg said at a conference this month that bookings made through AI channels \u201ccould potentially be cheaper than the OTAs\u201d. <\/p>\n
Hotel groups have long worked with online travel agents because they provide access to incremental business, but hope that more robust ties with customers will reduce the share of bookings done through them. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to rely on Booking and Expedia: they\u2019re expensive channels and they\u2019re extremely hard to defend your position on,\u201d said Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke.<\/p>\n
Hilton\u2019s efforts to lure more direct bookings include offering access to a \u00a3650 football-themed suite, decorated with boots and memorabilia, at its hotel at the official training ground for England\u2019s national teams. Guests can even get a training session with a qualified coach.<\/p>\n
Geoff Ballotti, chief executive of Wyndham, said that tools like ChatGPT and Gemini presented \u201ca unique opportunity for us to continue to reduce our dependency on OTAs\u201d. The company\u2019s own AI tools were already \u201cdriving more direct bookings\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Glenn Fogel, chief executive of Booking Holdings, which owns Priceline and Booking.com, said OTAs were \u201cabsolutely\u201d in competition with hotels\u2019 in-house loyalty programmes that sought to promote more direct bookings. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just one click away from going to another way to do your booking, so you\u2019ve got to always be providing better service because people like [Marriott] Bonvoy and people like Hilton Honors are very powerful.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Expedia\u2019s chief commercial officer Greg Schulze said there was \u201cspace for all of us\u201d in the $3tn travel industry and argued that his company\u2019s technology platforms added \u201ccomplementary value\u201d, especially for smaller operators that are not part of the big chains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Travel & leisure industry myFT Digest — delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-206264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}