Electronic Channel Distribution Hotel Inventory

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Electronic Channel DistributionHotel Inventory

• Pearl Brewer, Ph.D.
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Channel Distribution Terms

• Merchant Model
• Intermediaries negotiates rooms at net rates
  with suppliers and then sells them at a marked-up
  price.
• Opaque Site
• Brand opaque
• Hotwire.com
• Price opaque
• Friendlyplanet.com
• Auctions or Name your own Price
• Priceline.com

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Distribution Channels

• The Hotels Website
• Chain Website
• CRS links to travel agent websites or travel
  agents
• Auctions or other opaque sites

• Airline sites
• Online intermediaries
• Affiliates
• Tour Operators
• Brokers

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Distribution Channels Handout
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Issues for Hotels A Study Of Hotel Operators
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Control Issues

• Ability to control inventory
• manipulating black out dates and allotments
• inability to close out inventory
• manipulating availability
• Ability to control Rates
• maintaining rate parity
• not able to change rates as needed
• Power in the negotiation of Contracts with large
  companies (Expedia, Travelocity etc.)
• Control property descriptions across the web.

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Profitability Issues

• Revenue
• Yield
• Reduction in Margins due to discounting
• Collecting Payment
• Transactions costs

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Ability to Manage Channels

• Time
• Knowledge of the channels
• Ease of use of each channel from the management
  perspective
• Data received from channels
• Skills needed to manage channels
• Who should be responsible

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Customer-centric Issues

• Visibility of sites to the target audience
• Do they reach the intended market?
• Market positioning
• visual ranking of the channel on the users
  search engine display
• Purchase of keywords
• Purchase Sponsored links
• Usefulness of the sites
• Ease of use for the customer
• Availability of information
• Image of the channel in the mind of the customers

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Corporate Restriction, Technology, and Data Issues

• Chains and Corporation may place restrictions on
  their individual properties
• Technology to control channel management is
  either not known or understood by management
• Data collection an use in minimal and difficult

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Channel Management StrategiesMost Hotels did not
have an official strategy
Those strategies in use
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Channel Management Strategies

• Best rate guarantee
• Rate parity is a pricing strategy
• Yield management strategies including regular
  yield meetings, to maximize revenue by
  establishing rates and availability or driving
  rates over high occupancy dates.
• Search engine strategy
• Selective channel participation

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Still a hot topic for Hoteliers