Lowcosttravel group - is the OTA business model in trouble?

Aggy138

I've just booked accommodation with Alpharooms to Gran Canaria. It stated PAY AT HOTEL. My booking was confirmed within minutes but at the same time ANOTHER CONFIRMATION for the same booking came from booking.com? I panicked thought I'd DOUBLE BOOKED😱Turns out my booking was passed to booking.com with completely different booking conditions. My card was deducted for HALF the amount that was supposed to be paid at the HOTEL? Awful time trying to sort this out. I've booked lots of times with both have never had this happen????

redmalc

the hotel i have used numerous times advised last time they would beat anything i can find online which tends to make me think they are trying to get away from bed banks

Alan_Bowen

If hotels could do without bed banks I am sure they would be delighted but the travel market has changed and particularly in European destinations the old model doesn't work anymore. The old way of doing business was to charter seats on a plane and guarantee a hotel a specified number of rooms for the whole season. Hotels knew where they were and so did tour operators, if the holidays didn't sell, we saw the discount cards in travel agents windows to sell the unsold and usually unpopular rooms.

With the advent of Easyjet and the like, operators became less keen on guaranteeing anything as customers could now book to travel 7 days a week as opposed to specified days of the week in the past. As a result less and less accommodation was guaranteed and hoteliers had to look for other sources of income. Bed banks offered 'incremental business' to fill up the empty rooms but for some hotels who lost contracts with tour operators they became the major source of income. As bed banks power grew they increased the screws on the hotels, demanding cheaper rates and longer periods to pay.

Bed banks clearly helped hotels in bad years but in a year like this where demand outstrips demand in places like Spain and Portugal, they are delighted to see the back of Low Cost (apart from the money which may already be outstanding) as they can now sell the rooms at a much higher price . The OTA model isn't broken but I think hotels will review just how dependence they want on them going forward