| Activelifestyle adds new direct booking web domain to its travel portfolio. The Activelifestyle Travel Network will launch its new Internet domain WWW.bookhotelsdirect.com on Monday, May 20. As the name states, the domain’s sole purpose is to put travel buyers in direct contact with travel suppliers, namely hotels, tour operators, sport shops, ski and dive schools, transportation companies and others. As there is no commission to pay and in most cases no fee for travel suppliers to be listed on the domain, the theory is that hotels and those in the other travel supplier categories are free to set their own price. The logical extension to that theory is that in most cases the consumer and the supplier will both end up winning. With no commissions to pay, the supplier will realize all of the income from the sale of the room and will be in a frame of mind to pass at least some of these extra earning back to the consumer in the form of a reduced rate. “Great” I can hear you say, “but what’s the catch?” In a word, zero. No catch! No strings, you are just a click away from dealing directly with your choice from the hundreds of hotels that are featured on the site. So how does Activelifestyle benefit? Well for starters any time we can provide more, direct exposure for any of the hotels we work for we win. This increased exposure should often result in more business at no extra cost. That means (hopefully) that when it comes time to renew existing contracts life will be a little easier. So then it really is a win-win- win situation; the ideal business deal, everyone benefits. I got the idea from a recent feature in the International Herald Tribune. The international daily ran an article stating that only 4% of travelers actually made an on-line travel reservation. Imagine that, only 4% from the many millions of people that research their travel plans on line; 4% jeez. What was even scarier was the fact that of this measly number, the great majority was booking with only a handful of top dogs. The 800-pound gorilla group, so to speak. If I remember correctly the fortunate few consisted of MSN, HRS and Travelocity. Here’s how these folks earn the 800-pound gorilla tag. Armed with the proverbial fistful of dollars they buy up rooms from large chains of hotels at HUGE discounts. Then they mark up these rooms, usually, the IHT states, by about 20-25% and flog them on to you and me. Big profits if they sell them. Ok, about this point you are saying, who cares, a bargain is a bargain. Right you are, but still, most people do not book on line, remember? Just a chosen few get the bargains. Still, even 4% of millions of people is a lot. So if these hotels are selling off a lot of rooms at vastly reduced prices, where do you think they are going to make a profit themselves? After all they have lost their ability to ask the on line bookers for a fair price and, if they are selling many at drastically reduced rates, who is going to make up the shortfall, and how? Uh, you and me maybe? Probably not in the booking price, I mean who pays rack rate (the hotel’s published rate) anyway? But what do you bet that the hotels will try to pick up the slack by charging more for services like food and beverage, business facilities and the like? Moreover I am willing to wager that, wherever they can, they will cut down on wages in those departments too. So just 4% of the traveling public will be winners, but wait! How big are they winning? We already know that the gorilla group places a hefty markup for their troubles. Do we think that they should not? Hell no, we’re capitalists. So what’s the answer then? Book direct. Whether you do it on-line or in the-dare we say-conventional way, you and the hotel will surely benefit. And if you do, we do, it’s as simple as that. For comments please email me at bill@activelifestyle.com Bill Fogarty |