Source: https://www.tnooz.com/article/direct-hotel-booking-battle-a-potted-history-infographic/

This chart shows how bookings has evolved and the milestone of battles and strategies by hotels and intermediaries along the way.

The chart dates back from 1990s with the first arrivals of the online travel agencies (OTAs). The growth of Metasearch engines is captures so to is the rise and struggle of TripAdvisor instant bookings and its foray into metasearch.

 Of Course It Is Changing

Hotels have only recently started to get serious about winning back direct bookings as depicted by Hilton “Stop clicking around” campaign captured in the chart. The push to get more direct bookings is working and it apparently is beginning to change travelers belief that the best rates are always offered by OTAs.

The Bookings Battle Infographic chart show that on a recent survey hotels had the better rates 53% of the time.

Change is Galloping On

ChatBots and AI, Behavior responsive systems, natural language navigation and Personalization, at PersonaHolidays are the new entries to travel, and they will be big in 2017.

Bookings are now ubiquitous, they are the new commodities, which is ironic when hotels complain that OTAs have made rooms a commodity. Today personality is making the difference and for that reasons hotels can again have the upper hand.