RoomKey.com Is The Trend. Go Direct.

Several hotel suppliers, large chains, banded together and created www.RoomKey.com. The room inventory will include Choice Hotels International (NYSE: CHH), Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H), InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE: IHG), Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE: MAR) and Wyndham Hotel Group, part of the Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN).  It will compete directly with the OTAs to provide room and price inventory search results. 

The evolution of tourism marketing is to go direct to the consumer. Managing OTAs and other outlets will continue to be relevant. But controlling your destiny through the OTAs and your own website limits your reach and control. It limits your control over the relationship with the consumer, the price, the experience and the cost of acquisition. The more a property advertises on OTAs, the more it perpetuates that problem. 

So, why wouldn't every tourism business go direct to the consumer? Why wouldn't they find alliances, band together and market directly? They do. DMOs are the standard for that. But limiting a property's reach to the nearest destination is problematic. Just relying on the city, region and state to do your job doesn't take advantage of the current market opportunity. The US has become very fragmented and schizophrenic. To suggest that all travel is tied to a destination is just wrong. The activity is equally valuable. And so is finding a cheap room rate. RoomKey.com is exploiting the travel planning behavior of finding a good room rate.

For some time we have argued that to win in tourism marketing you need to be the company that most efficiently harvests conversions from the broadest range of channels. Direct, OTAs and DMOs must all be managed. I expect to see more tourism businesses exploiting other travel planning behaviors and going direct to the consumer. RoomKey.com's success is dependent on many factors beyond the scope of this article. But, I'm a fan and will watch with interest.