Marketing

📈 Online travel agencies (OTAs) cause revenue leakage for hotels through commission discrepancies, unpaid reservations, cancellation abuse, and rate parity issues. Recovery involves identifying leakage points, aligning revenue, distribution, and finance teams, and implementing steps like regular OTA audits, accountability, and tracking net channel profitability. Effective management ensures that each booking contributes positively to hotel profits. Key steps include improving data visibility across systems and focusing on profit alongside revenue in modern distribution strategies.

💸 Uber Eats' recent actions serve as a cautionary tale for the hospitality industry. The complaint from Accor loyalty program managers is that direct loyalty is perceived as costly, but this view is misleading. When 70% of distribution relies on third parties, businesses become mere tenants, losing control over customer data and relationships. Sebastien Bazin suggests OTAs should only introduce guests, emphasizing the importance of direct bookings to maintain margins and customer loyalty.

🌎 Mar 6, 2026: Hospitality brands are reshaping guest experiences through storytelling, embedding local culture and history into hotel operations. Historic buildings and adaptive-reuse projects enrich authenticity and command higher rates. Travelers now seek immersive narratives and book multiple hotels to create varied experiences. Hotels are cultural hubs, enhancing local interactions. Authentic, culturally-rooted stories outperform generic content, with hospitality marketing evolving into narrative design. Hotels act as cultural anchors, emphasizing provenance over polished luxury.

📧 Jonathan Holcomb, VP at Storey Hotel Management Group, shared strategies to combat email fatigue affecting hotel marketing. In the Bay Area, Chicago, Anguilla, and Fiji, his team uses email microsegmentation, leveraging a CRM to create over 50 targeted marketing journeys. This approach personalizes emails based on guest data, improving open rates and conversions. Timing is crucial; effective campaigns involve sending emails at strategic intervals, considering guest context to maximize engagement and reduce cart abandonment.