GOOD DAY, READERS.
Hotels have been trying to win back more control of the booking process for more than a decade — and the results are more interesting than the headline number suggests. In his latest feature, Skift's Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O'Neill finds that, yes, OTA room-night share has crept up slightly. But the big chains have won quite a bit: commissions as low as 10%, loyalty programs driving two-thirds of Hilton's occupancy, the ability to cut OTA access during peak periods.
The real threat now is agentic AI, which could bypass hotel apps entirely. As Hilton's marketing chief told Sean: "We may all very well lose our front doors."
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Direct Booking Tug-of-War: Hotels’ Long Bid to Take Back Power
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Ten years after Hilton, Marriott, and other chains began coaxing travelers to book directly, online travel agencies still control roughly the same slice of the pie. Yet the chains have won the economics: lower commissions, better contract terms, and stronger loyalty programs.
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MORNING HEADLINES
CHART OF THE DAY
Yesterday afternoon, Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill published a feature on the competition between online travel agencies and the big hotel brands.
Commissions and contract terms don’t fully explain the hotel-OTA tug-of-war. Recessions and other demand shocks have prompted hotels to lean more on OTA bookings in the short term.
But the biggest long-term effort hotels have made to boost their position vis-à-vis OTAs has been the growth of loyalty programs.
Last August, IHG said that “loyalty members are about 10 times more likely to book direct and spend about 20% more on average than non-members.” All the major hotel groups report similar statistics.
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