← Business Models: Industry Specific (Consumer, Services & Financial) (all topics)
Supplier direct-booking push
What it is
Airlines and hotel chains driving customers to book on their own websites and apps rather than through intermediaries, using loyalty benefits, best-rate guarantees and member-only pricing
Every direct booking avoids the commission an OTA would take
Impact on industries
- Attacks the OTA's economics at the point of highest value, since the customers most worth keeping are exactly the repeat travellers suppliers target
- For the supplier it converts a variable commission into owned customer data and a direct relationship
- Loyalty programmes are the mechanism, which is why multi-brand chains invest heavily in them
- OTAs retain the discovery and comparison role, and smaller suppliers still depend on them for demand they cannot generate alone
- The equilibrium differs by segment - large chains and full-service airlines can pull direct; independent hotels cannot