The business model of hotels is outmoded and needs a drastic overhaul, Heather Blaseby, Le Meridien's vice president for worldwide distribution, told a London conference.
“I want to take out the fatally outmoded way we work. We need a transformation not just in our system but in our approach. We need aggressively to market our brands,” she told the ABTECH one day conference on The Supply Side.
Ms Blaseby said hotels had lost control of their product to the online agencies which offered direct access to their properties and minute by minute up to date data on availability and prices.
“Hotels have just woken up to the fact that we have been eaten by these people,” she said.
Hotels were getting their product back but still did not understand the “buying dynamics” of their customers.
“We need to understand our customers' buying patterns not their staying patterns and sell what the companies want and not what we want. We need a clearer view of the customer or the decision maker and we must start appraising the cost and value of various elements,” she said.
Ms Blaseby said Le Meridien had now imposed rate parity which no general manager could undercut because the group did not want their customers trawling the Internet for better rates.
She also threatened to withdraw her inventory from any online booking agency if she felt hey were not playing fair.
Earlier, Peter Altmann, Europcar International's Internet, GDS and automation manager, that car rental companies had no control over what online put on their sites about his company's product.
“We only control what goes on our own site and through travel agencies booking through the GDSs. We don't have any control over the others.
“We feel we are not presented appropriately because each online tool uses its own search criteria.
They ask for whatever we have and we ship tons of data and the online tool filters out what it wants. Instead it should be sending us specific inquiries.”
Mr Altmann said the aim was to extend the systems standards which the GDSs use to the online tools.