O V E R V I E W O F T H E R E S E R VAT I O N S Y S T E M 141

At Remington Hotels at its Inn at Key West by comparing before and after statistics, they found that the Guest Connect booking engine produced over 250% more bookings than the old booking engine when compared on a weekly basis. This increase resulted in more than $45,000 in incremental revenue each week for the 100-room property.10

Consumers Response to Use of the Internet—Third-Party Websites

Third-party websites, such as Expedia and Travelocity, provide the consumer an opportunity to view hotel room availability and rates with a few keystrokes on the computer. Consumer response to the opportunity to book room reservations online has been overwhelming. TravelCLICK, a Chicago-based electronic provider of reservations for consumers, serves over 14,000 customers in more than 140 countries. It indicated consumers’ reliance on the Internet to process reservations.

TravelCLICK, Inc., the leading provider of ecommerce solutions for the global hotel industry, announced that as global markets realized a decline in demand through the first part of the year, TravelCLICK’s independent client properties are performing strongly across more than 100 markets worldwide, delivering 39% more revenue and 29% more room nights for year-to-date May 2008 than in previous years. TravelCLICK hotels’ direct web performance led the way, increasing 42% in web direct reservations and 46% in web revenues.11

This overwhelming response to the Internet continues. Starkov emphasizes the importance of e-CRM, evidenced by high consumer use of computer generated travel bookings:

Even with [an] expected decline in travel demand, online travel bookings in North America in 2009 are projected to grow by 10.5% and reach $116.1 billion and grow by 11% in 2010 (eMarketer). This growth is primarily the result of the dramatic shift from the offline to online channel. Similar is the situation in Europe and APAC. In 2009, more than 55% of all travel bookings and up to 40% of all hotel bookings in North America will be generated from the Internet (eMarketer, HeBS), which represents a double-digit growth over 2008. At least another third of hotel bookings will be directly influenced by online research, but booked offline. Over 65% of online hotel bookings will come from the direct online channel, i.e., via the hotel’s own website (76% for the major hotel brands). The hotel website has become the first, main, only and in many cases last point of contact with past, current and potential guests.12

Social Media

The new methods of reaching consumers via social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and blogs requires hoteliers to consider these options in developing their marketing plans. John Davies provides several concepts to consider in deciding how to develop such a plan.