A day in the life of somebody dealing with hotel distribution involves fighting lot of fires.
“I think distribution teams are becoming more like guardians for rate and inventory parity as we look at what is happening across channels overall,” says Inderpreet Banga, senior director, e-distribution and wholesale strategy, Wyndham.
Banga, whose main role is to strategically navigate the group’s network of global partners, says it’s a “pretty hectic” environment as the landscape continues to evolve.
Indeed, the channels of the ‘old days’, which Sanchit Rege, a manager of distribution strategy at Hyatt, likens to tanks filled with water, are now empty. Then, each tank was exclusively meant for a different segment, and customers did not have access to or knowledge of the water in another tank.
“The world now has modern pipes, where water flows between tanks seamlessly,” says Rege.
What this means is that whereas typically, hotels had a different strategy for each channel – for GDSs, OTAs, wholesalers, corporate booking tools, and TMCs – today these are merging as the industry is becoming more agnostic. To address this, hotels need a strategic shift because rates will find themselves on all these platforms whether they like it or not.
At Wyndham, rate competitiveness is more relevant now than it ever has been. Banga says: “When people think about rate parity they are thinking about online leisure channels. But it’s more than just rates – it’s everything from compensation, cancellation policy, and discounts that are being distributed through other third parties.”
While the chains may have more power in this environment Rege believes it is important for all hotels, including independents, to start putting the guest back at the centre of their channel optimisation strategy.
A shifting environment requires education
As Banga explains, the GDSs and TMCs haven’t grown at the same pace as the OTAs over the past few years.
“It was only a matter of time before they [the OTAs] started innovating to get better rates [from GDSs/wholesale players et al] to increase booking fees and conversions. Ultimately, this comes back to the rate parity discussion because every provider wants the booking to happen through them, or at least to own some part of the transaction.”
