Hotels have gone through a roller coaster over the past 18 months. What was the state of OTA usage (dependency?) prior to COVID, and where is it heading now? What is the recovery’s impact on rate, the booking window, OTA performance, direct-to-hotel performance and how has performance changed across different segments? Watch an expert panel discussion with the leading hotel data intelligence experts, moderated by ROOMDEX’s own Paul Peddrick as part of our Webinar Series.

The Panelists engage in a lively discussion on the surprising behavior of the market and tactics and strategies you should employ as part of any hotel commercial/revenue team.

Panelists:

• Cindy Estis Green, CEO & Co-Founder at Kalibri Labs
• Fabian Prinz, Global Commercial Manager – Market Insight at OTA Insight
• James Bishop, Senior Director Global Ecosystem at SiteMinder
• Jos Schaap CEO and Co-Founder at ROOMDEX

Data intelligence is the answer for every revenue manager’s recovery problems. We are 18 months into the pandemic and hotel sales teams and revenue managers are struggling to ride out this very uneven recovery. It has been uneven in terms of geography, pace, booking window and segment.

• Some countries are totally opening up and some are totally closing down.
• Before the pandemic, revenue managers tracked new airline routes and demand generators like college sports. Now we also have to track things like CDC guidance and travel restrictions.

The world of distribution is very different than twenty years ago when travel came to a standstill after 9/11. Today, the world is very different.

• The tools available to hotels are much more sophisticated and granular
• Hotels seem to have become a bit more scientific about their own marketing, loyalty programs and online booking mechanisms
• and most importantly there are a lot of distribution options

So, the real question is: how are we responding to market stress this time around? Are we doing anything we may later regret? What might we be do differently to thrive in this volatile recovery?