Choice CEO urges hotels to win over OTA business
Choice Hotels Asia-Pac CEO, Trent Fraser, has encouraged the company's franchisee members to treat online travel agents as "frenemies" and to encourage guests to book future stays directly in an effort to minimise commission bills.
Speaking at the company's biennial franchisee conference in Melbourne last week, Fraser highlighted the strength of the growing Choice Privileges loyalty program as an ideal way to drive more direct and repeat business and to maximise yields from repeat guests.
Speaking exclusively to HM, Fraser said the company and its members were more than capable of competing with online travel agents.
"We've got to be able to learn how to work better with them (OTAs), closely with them, but also make sure we're getting the balance right from those companies to our hotel," he said.
Carl Oldsberg, Choice Hotels Vice President, International Operations, said it's too early to tell in terms of the group-wide sustained success that may have come from the company's decision last year to link its booking functionality with Google. He added that the company and its franchisees wanted to control its business directly but that larger players such as OTAs and Google were needed to bring that first guest in the front door.