Choice, Expedia Return To Negotiating Table
By Adam Kirby, Associate Editor -- Hotels, 10/29/2009 9:09:00 AM
Choice Hotels International has resumed negotiations with Expedia Inc. in an attempt to end a messy public feud and get Choice properties back on Expedia's online distribution channels.
The two organizations resumed negotiations last week, Choice spokesman David Peikin tells HOTELS. "Discussions are ongoing as we continue to pursue a mutually beneficial agreement with Expedia, and hope that we will arrive at one in our franchised hotel owners’ best interests," Peikin says. "At the same, we continue to deploy our powerful marketing and e-commerce initiatives to drive business to our franchise owners’ hotels."
Anne Madison, Choice’s senior vice president for corporate communications, tells Hotel News Now that the company's primary objective at this point is to ensure that "franchisees have control over their businesses."
Many in the hotel industry have been vocal in their support for Choice against Expedia, including rival Best Western International. HOTELS readers have overwhelmingly backed Choice in message board posts and in blog comments, with some calling for other hotel companies to take similar stands against Expedia.
Nevertheless, Madison says Choice is uninterested in leading a hotel industry revolt. “The most important thing is to do what’s right for our franchisees,” she tells the Web site. “We are really speaking for our franchises, not the industry. We want to operate in the best interest of our franchisees.”
Expedia pulled all Choice properties from its Web sites on October 15 after contract negotiations broke down. Choice refused to sign a deal that Choice CEO Steve Joyce says would have effectively taken away franchisees’ rights to manage inventory and rates.
In turn, Expedia contacted Choice franchisees directly, claiming it did not demand of Choice anything it does not already have in place with other lodging companies.
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Independent hotels never had the means nor an easy way
to get their presence on the internet made stable and
productive. When we opened shop in Paris with it''s
2000
hotels to create websites for them back in 1999 hardly
any hotel had their own website and couldn''t see the
point.
That''s where the OTAs took control. But as Hotels Mag
wrote in the other article on OTAs creating brand
awareness, it is not lost for small hotels at all. Get
on the OTAs and make your own site offer added value to
direct reservations and hotels can take control of
their distribution again.
Martin Soler - 2009-30-10 06:06:00 PDT -
The American hotel industry failed in taking control of internet booking technology years ago which left the door wide open for Expedia, Orbitz and other third parties to enter and garnish marketing power and enormous fees away from hotel operators.
For a hotel not to have control of last room availability or having its own rates undercut by third parties beckons the questions...who is in really charge of our hotel institutions?
J L Jacobson - 2009-29-10 13:18:00 PDT
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