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Technology is the leading frontier in driving increased revenues through direct bookings and it’s becoming much easier to capture travellers’ interest.

It’s been 20 years since the Internet started to change the make-up of travel and the way in which we research, plan and book our holidays and business trips. The hotel sales strategy used to be incredibly straightforward; target a market, work with a travel agent and the bookings would come flooding in. The GDS made the process simple and easy to manage, and although hotels were often committed to just a few suppliers, the sales and distribution cycle had been simple.

Then along came OTAs who began to undercut travel agency pricing, while being more accessible to travellers. Travellers were becoming independent; allowing them to pick and choose what they wanted from their vacations without feeling pressured to book a certain way, and they were in control of their own budgets. OTAs became incredibly powerful with huge investments in building visibility on search engines and developing brand awareness – leaving hotels to try to stay afloat with increased distribution costs.

Overtime the array of distribution channels continued to increase, with escalated costs and 10 years ago hotels were fighting for survival. Larger rivals were buying out hotels and independent hotels were struggling to remain independent. In the past 10 years technology has become more accessible and much cheaper, allowing the hotelier to pick and choose its channels, the technology and methods of distribution.

We are now entering a new era; where the technology is available; allowing hotels to be integrated and connected to a wider world without having to rely on one supplier: giving them the chance to target the traveller directly. The hotel distribution sector may at first glance appear complicated, however seamless, connected technology is now providing all networks and distribution points through one single system to allow the hotelier to have full control and optimise the performance of the channels that will drive more bookings and increased revenue.

As a result, hotels no longer need to focus on one target market, instead – can broaden and spread themselves across the entire world if needed.

“International travel is increasing, and smaller hotels have the challenge of grabbing attention from the big brands. These hotels need to focus on highlighting their unique offerings, such as their location or one-of-a-kind amenities, while also tapping into the preferences of foreign travellers,” says Taylor Short, hotel market researcher for the online technology reviews company Software Advice.

Short continues, “In our survey, we found that U.S. travellers are most likely to book direct if offered an upgraded room. If you’re a hotel in the Middle East including a “Book Now and Save!” pop-up on your website and offer an upgrade or free room service could encourage more direct booking from travellers originating in the United States. These are minor costs for hotels, but can be compelling to travellers, no matter where they hail from.”

While 20 years ago managing your own website was complicated requiring a lot of code as well as time and effort to regularly update content and pricing; today websites go live quickly with a booking engine that will show live rates with comparable prices from across other sales channels and can be updated through a single system. This now puts the power back into the hands of the revenue manager who can focus on optimising price and packages again, instead of simply trying to manage the relationships and published prices across the vast array of sales channels.

2016 marks 20 years since the launch of the first travel website, according to The Guardian, and 2017 will be the chance for hotels to take back the control it lost as a result of this seismic shift in the way hotel bookings are made.

2016 marks 20 years since the launch of the first travel website, according to The Guardian, and 2017 will be the chance for hotels to take back the control it lost as a result of this seismic shift in the way hotel bookings are made.