TravelBizBuzz

My first tip-off to vacation rental properties’ growing popularity was in an exclusive interview with LeisureLink president and CEO, Erik Hovanec. Noting a “rise of the vacation rental,” Hovanec said hotels might want to keep an eye on the influx of “condo converts.”

In other words, people are beginning to see the practical and emotional benefits of having a kitchen and living room on vacation. And just the other day, I found another source indicating the vacation rental trend -- on the ownership end. My Smith Travel Research daily hospitality news email featured a PricewaterhouseCoopers Survey that noted “a growing segment of the broader vacation home sector.”

The survey said “one-sixth of affluent households indicate they may consider purchasing a fractional ownership resort within the next five years.”

“Fractional ownership is indisputably growing in popularity as the vacation home market continues to evolve,” commented Scott D. Berman, principal of hospitality & leisure practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers, in the report.

Hoteliers take note: Vacation rentals are “starting to mimic the hotel in how they merchandize their products,” Hovanec pointed out. And agents are enjoying the higher commissions that vacation rentals offer as “hotels are cutting back on commissions,” he said. “I’ve seen commission rates as high as 14 or 15 percent when overrides start kicking in.”

Takeaway: Expect more competition between hotels and vacation rentals for the leisure traveler, and eventually competition between the properties themselves.

-- Lindsey Rushmore, Editor In Chief, Travel Distribution Report --

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Will a bold Hilton proposal fill a huge void that’s supposedly keeping the Indian travel market from booming to it’s awesome potential?

While researching my recent article about India’s online travel market (TDR, Vol 14, No. 22), I uncovered some interesting ideas about why the travel market in India has yet to see its best days. Besides some obvious cultural factors, such as Indian consumers not warming up to credit cards, according to experts, hotel inventory is hurting — which means there’s slim pickings for those eager travelers to stay.

“Hotels [in India] don’t have the overcapacity that they do in much of the world, especially in Europe and the US,” Jared Blank, editor of Online Travel Review told me in an interview. “So while online agencies in the U.S. are making a nice profit on hotel rooms, the inventory doesn’t even exist in India.”

Well apparently, the inventory’s coming. In a recent press release, Hilton Hotels said it’s aiming “to form one of the largest international hotel chains in India.” Hilton, in a joint venture with Indian company DLF Limited, plans to build “50 to 75 hotels and service apartments over 7 years.”

For the full press release, click here.

Challenge for Hilton: Getting consumers to book on the hotel’s Web sites could be quite difficult, according to a recent email exchange I had with Himanshu Singh, Travelocity India’s managing director. “Hotels in India get less than 1 percent of their business through their own Web sites,” he said.

-- Lindsey Rushmore, Editor-in-Chief, Travel Distribution Report

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As online travel booking revenue is estimated to reach $70 billion in 2006 (Jupiter Research), hoteliers want to make sure their online marketing investments are on target.

That’s why Pegasus Solutions has stepped in and launched Web Analytics Service to help hotel marketing and Internet managers get the right data “to improve site conversion and segment their most valuable customers for repeat business,” Pegasus said in a Nov. 8 release.

Even though 66 percent of consumers have abandoned purchases while visiting a hotel Web site, Jupiter Research has shown 71 percent of sites do not analyze customer drop-out rates, noted Mike Kistner, Pegasus Solutions COO and president of Reservation and Distribution Services. “Without understanding where you’re losing customers in the shopping and booking process, you can’t be completely accountable for every dollar of your online marketing spend.”

Through a relationship with DDSA Partners, the Web Analytics service will help hoteliers understand online consumers and track online revenue from its originating source through the reservation conversion process.

To show hotels their exact revenue sources, the solution analyzes Web activity integrated with revenue data that comes directly from the NetBooker Internet booking engine.

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Hotel suppliers in the GenaRes system will soon see a speedier content distribution in a “standards-based XML interface,” Worldspan claims.

Dallas-based hotel representation company, GenaRes Worldwide Reservation Services Ltd., will implement Worldspan XML Pro for Suppliers hotel content product, Worldspan announced in a Nov. 6 press release.

The product, a component of the Worldspan Wired suite of messaging products, is a data exchange solution for direct connections between hotel suppliers and a GDS.

Worldspan dubs the new product “the first end-to-end XML solution for hotels,” and boasts that it has expanded the solution to create new e-commerce distribution opportunities for hotels and other travel suppliers using XML-based specifications from the Open Travel Alliance (OTA), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and the latest data transfer standards.

“GenaRes can now electronically build and update properties in Worldspan with unprecedented speed and efficiency,” said Ursula Rhode, executive VP for GenaRes. “We anticipate our operating and system maintenance costs will decrease significantly through the ability to exchange a broad range of structured data with the Worldspan GDS using this advanced messaging technology.”

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European hotel travel Web site HotelReservations.travel now has more exposure to travelers around the world, thanks to SynXis.

SynXis, a Sabre Holdings business that provides reservation management, distribution and technology services for hotels, announced Oct. 25 it has developed a direct connection to HotelReservations.travel using its Channel Connect interface.

Channel Connect integrates the RedX Distribution Management System directly to third party travel sites and custom-built booking engines. The Channel Connect interface also helps hotels better differentiate their products by providing information such as detailed stay policies and child pricing directly to retail points of sales, SynXis explained.

“Using SynXis’ Channel Connect means thousands of properties can now be distributed on our site with no extra set up costs, no extranet to manage, and reservations are delivered electronically instead of via fax,” said Danny Scholtens, Sales Manager of HotelReservations.travel.

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LeisureLink condos, resorts and vacation rentals now have another way to make their properties more visible to the consumer.

Online hotel distributor and revenue management provider LeisureLink has joined Travelocity’s Net Rate Hotel Program, according to an Oct. 19 press release.

This means that LeisureLink’s properties will soon be featured in Travelocity’s hotel and packaging shopping engines.

“Travelocity has been a key distributor of our content since the founding of LeisureLink, and joining its net rate program will raise the visibility of vacation rental properties for the consumer and provide additional bookings for our clients,” said Steve Reich, senior VP of sales and marketing for LeisureLink.

At the same time, “This is yet another opportunity for us to provide our customers with richer content, wider availability, and more options,” Noreen Henry, vice president of hotels for Travelocity.

LeisureLink will use Travelocity’s automated, two-way CRS connectivity, which allows travelers booking a room on Travelocity to view current rates and room availability.

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Global travel and transport information company OAG is extending its hand toward leisure and unmanaged business travelers.

OAG announced Oct. 12 new online hotel ‘look and book’ service on its travel Web site, according to a press release.

“The new service is targeted at business and leisure consumers who need a quick and easy solution to finding and booking a hotel,” said Kathy Marr, VP of marketing and publishing for OAG Americas.

The OAG.com hotel booking engine offers major hotel brands worldwide at discounted rates. The site features full color hotel brochures and interactive mapping, and is available in multiple languages and currencies. World Choice Travel, a division of the Travelocity Partner Network, powers the reservation system.

Travelers may also take advantage of the site’s Best Rate Guarantee. For several properties, this gives anyone who finds a better online deal at the property the guarantee that OAG will match the rate, plus pay 10 percent of the difference in price.

“The addition of this simple ‘look and book’ service is complimentary to the subscription products we offer the corporate market for preparing complex and frequent trip plans with preferencing and full itinerary building capabilities,” Marr said.

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With the fall season comes a surge in group travel, and hotels.com is ready to take full advantage.

The online hotel booking site has added a new “Groups” tab to its homepage to direct groups of travelers to the right spot from the start, according to a Sept. 21 press release.

“Trying to find the right property that will meet the various needs of travelers within a group can be a stressful process, particularly if you are not a frequent traveler and trying to research in your spare time,” said Jack Richards, senior VP of product marketing for hotels.com.

But now customers can work directly with hotel specialists whose sole focus is group travel. For example, specialists are prepared to assist with the requirements ofsports teams and fans, brides and grooms, families, friends and couples, noted Richards.

The system works as such: Travelers interested in reserving nine or more hotel rooms complete an online form. A hotels.com group travel specialist then researches the request and contacts individual hotel properties. Within 24 hours, the group travel specialist will negotiate rates and contact the customer by e-mail or phone to make property recommendations and confirm the reservation.

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KDS, an online business travel management solutions provider now has further global access to independent and chain hotels.

To make this happen, KDS signed an agreement with Pegaus Solutions Inc. to use its UltraDirect electronic distribution service, according to a Sept. 6 press release.

Now KDS users have direct access to more than 60,000 independent and chain hotels worldwide, with instant venue information, such as rates, availability, reservations and inventory. UltraDirect will give KDS customers complete control of the booking experience, making it easy to integrate other business traveler services, such as car, flight and train reservations.

Because UltraDirect works compatibly with virtually any programming language and Web infrastructure, KDS may also customize the program’s front-end interface to meet its customers’ travel needs.

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Travel companies are beefing up their online storefronts to attract self-bookers, but that doesn’t mean travel agents don’t play an important role in booking travel products.

“Travel agents are the experts on finding the best travel solution and presenting it to the consumer in a way that makes them want to buy,” says Lee Rosen, president of agent technology solutions provider TRAMS.

But agents can’t rely solely on in-demand products or sophisticated technology to lure travelers and remain important to suppliers — they must become marketing and sales dynamos, Rosen asserts. Here’s how.

Tap Into Travelers’ Histories

The greatest value that travel agents bring to the table is their past experiences with their customers, Rosen notes. Each time a traveler books a trip with an agent, the agent learns another piece of crucial information, such as where the traveler has been, what type of trips he prefers, what level of accommodation he seeks, how much he wants to spend and what his family is like.

Key: Agents must mine that information and promote travel products that make sense for the traveler. As agents make the best matches between travelers and products, they build loyalty into their client relationships, Rosen says.

That loyalty is very lucrative to travel suppliers who want a full house or sold-out flight — which means that by leveraging their own experiences with travelers, agents become the key intermediary between a supplier and the customers their businesses hinge on.

Use Web To Manage Sales

Where agencies used to need elaborate management systems, now they can rely on the Web for rapid, efficient customer management — whether they’re managing customers, suppliers or other agents.

Rosen suggests that agents “use the Internet to retrieve customer and product information, distribute and track that information as well as store it in a customer database.”

By using the Internet to manage their clients, agencies also open themselves up for incentives from suppliers who use the Web to promote their products. For example, a hotel may offer agents a steep discount for steering a client to its Web site over its competitors — or for booking that hotel over all other hotels when possible.

Lesson Learned: Though agents used to be used a basic transaction processing tool, their real value today is in knowing the customers, creating detailed databases and influencing how and where consumers purchase their travel products, Rosen claims.

For more information about how agents can remain relevant in the online travel landscape of the future, check out the current issue of Travel Distribution Report.

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Cell phone users now have another reason to gab it up in the Starbucks line.

Hotels.com has partnered with Sprint to allow users to access rates and book rooms through their Sprint Vision mobile phones, according to a June 15 release.

Mobile customers will have real-time access to more than 70,000 hotels, vacation rentals and bed & breakfasts. The feature includes “sorting options, viewing pictures of properties and instant access to their itineraries without the need to print and carry the itinerary with them,” says Scott Booker, VP of customer marketing for Hotels.com.

The “first of its kind” service harnesses OpenMotion LLC’s mobile distribution platform, the company explains.

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