Last-Room Availability Not The Norm... Yet
-- Hotels, 11/4/2009 2:03:00 PM
Providing online travel agents with last-room availability, reportedly one of the big sticking points in the ongoing feud between Choice Hotels International and Expedia Inc., is hardly standard operating procedure in the hotel industry, a survey by HotelMarketing.com confirms. However, the self-reported survey of more than 500 hoteliers hints that the controversial practice is becoming increasingly prevalent.
Using the Choice-Expedia negotiations as a jumping-off point, the Web site asked readers whether Expedia or other OTAs have demanded last-room availability as a condition of a listing deal, as Choice CEO Steve Joyce claims Expedia is. Last-room availability, or LRA, requires hoteliers to make every guestroom in the hotel available to the OTA, which many hoteliers say effectively renders revenue management impotent.
About 90% of the respondents say they are not bound by LRA requirements in their OTA deals. Of the 10% that do have LRA deals in place, most of them are in Europe and North America, according to HotelMarketing, and some unnamed major brands are included.
That number may be on the rise, however. "Many reported that LRA is increasingly becoming a topic when renegotiating contracts with OTAs," the article says. "A major concern especially expressed from hotels that currently drive on merchant agreements, where contracted net-rates are typically 30% and more below published rates."
HotelMarketing did not disclose the specific identities of respondents, nor did it provide detailed demographic information about respondents, beyond saying that the survey represented a global cross-section of brands, independents and market segments.
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