Did hospitality tech actually revolutionise the direct booking game?

Did hospitality tech actually revolutionise the direct booking game?

For years now, Hospitality tech brands have been promoting that they can help accommodation providers increase DIRECT BOOKING. Did hospitality tech actually revolutionise the hospitality booking monopoly or not?
by 
Romain Baron
Article
April 13, 2023

For years now, Hospitality tech brands have been promoting that they can help accommodation providers increase DIRECT BOOKING.

Maybe through a more powerful booking engine, a better understanding of their data, add-ons like chat or widgets or upsell tools, website optimisation, VR/AR, social and marketing tools…I am sure someone will find a way to say that their new ChatGPT integration somehow can increase the conversion rate too…:)

However, if you look at the latest key figures from Booking.com (Artiref) 2022, the sworn enemy of accommodation providers that the hospitality tech industry has promised to fight back against, Booking.com (Artiref) has just kept growing without ANY problems (except in 2020 of course).So I wonder:

  • Did hospitality tech actually revolutionise the hospitality booking monopoly or not?
  • Does the USP “Increase direct booking” from tech should not be changed to something more believable?
  • Does it not explain why founders struggle so much to raise more cash from current or new investors?

I think it’s important to recognise failure if there is, otherwise Founders, CEOs, product, sales and marketing teams are going to keep pushing unbelievable messages and waste tons of money on false campaigns and content marketing.

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Eva
Ruben
Romain

Why Bond?

2.5x

increase in rev.

+41%

increase in win rate.

+30%

partner-sourced rev.