This may sound like a very good news for independent hotels : another step towards the end of rate parity has been done.
At this link you can read a recent interview with Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia, and his plan to completely revise the relationship between the well-known OTA and independent hotels, turning a blind eye on disparity rate and opaque offers on direct channels.
Sounds great!
However, what I find really interesting in this article is the fact that all the Big Players (did you know that TripAdvisor is already beta-testing tailor-made recommendations? If you don’t, check this out) are focusing more and more on Big Data Management and user experience and less on controlling rate dispersion.
So, is this the end of rate-parity?
Maybe, but it’s the end of the “one-size- fits-all-approach” too.
And, unfortunately, this is the average approach of independent hotels.
Expedia and TripAdvisor think about the power of Big Data, while hotels barely have a clear newsletter database for DEM.
Rate-parity is dead, long life to rate-parity!
Link: Simonepuorto.com