Over the last couple of days, you may have received an email from Booking.com, stating that, starting from 2 December, you’ll “gain access to a larger audience as your Genius rates will be offered to the most frequent travelers across other companies within the Booking Holdings family.”

Rough waters in the macro environment have rocked the boats of travel companies across the globe. They have had to navigate through the consequences of currency instability, the U.S.-China trade war, Brexit and Hong Kong protests. Across all regions, public online travel agency (OTA) gross bookings growth rates slowed in the first half of 2019 (1H19) according to Phocuswright‘s latest travel research report Public Online Travel Roundup, 1H19.

There is still a lot of talk in the hospitality industry regarding the rising costs of distribution. While encouraging guests to book direct can help hotels bypass some commissions and fees (even direct channels are typically not a free lunch), there are still many hotels that rely on the distribution and marketing reach of online travel agencies (OTAs).

Investing in a new website can have a huge impact on your hotel’s direct bookings and profit margins. But is now the time for your hotel to make that investment? To make a wise decision, one should rely on both concrete metrics and past experience.

Are you involved in improving the performance of your hotel website’s direct revenue contributions? If so, you probably make data-driven decisions every day. This will likely involve dealing with web analytics, booking engine revenue data, Ad platforms, or similar tools.

We all know that data is crucial for tracking the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns. But is the data you’re looking at really telling you the whole story? The truth is: the results you’re looking at can be greatly affected by the metrics that you monitor and how you monitor those metrics.

It’s budgeting season, which means your hotel is probably ready to start planning how, when and where you’ll be investing during 2020. As part of the “20/20 Strategy” series, we’ll offer expert tips to help you map your digital marketing budget, which could define how successful you are next year.

It’s budgeting season, which means your hotel is probably ready to start planning how, when, and where you’ll be investing in 2020. As part of the “20/20 Strategy” series, we’ll offer expert tips to help you budget for key areas that could define how successful you are next year

SHANGHAI and NEEDHAM, Mass., Nov. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Trip.com Group Limited (Nasdaq: TCOM) ("Trip.com Group", formerly known as Ctrip.com International Ltd. (Nasdaq: CTRP)) and TripAdvisor, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP) ("TripAdvisor") today announced a strategic partnership to expand global cooperation, including a joint venture, global content agreements and a governance agreement.

Expedia Group is staring down Google as a looming giant in the field of travel, with the built-in advantage of its prowess as a search and advertising titan, but Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom is stopping short of calling for increased regulatory scrutiny of the tech giant’s approach to booking trips.
When he took the CEO job at Seattle-based Expedia Group two years ago, Okerstrom identified the travel giant’s biggest competitor as Booking Group, the parent of travel sites including Priceline and Booking.com. But more recently, Okerstrom has pointed instead to Google as Expedia Group’s largest competitor, as the search giant expands its own online travel services.