We recently caught up with James Bishop from SiteMinder, a GuestCentric partner for channel management, and we revisited the topic of the latest trends and challenges facing the hospitality world. Direct Booking, of course, was an unavoidable topic.

Currently, there are several indicators showing that there is significant indecision among customers when choosing accommodation. This stems from the huge diversity of highly tempting opportunities and offers that can be found in the online world.

In the past few years' most hoteliers have been taking advantage of online marketing tools as a way to increase their website traffic website and secure direct bookings. However, the main purpose of the investment on these online tools was focused only in conversion, i.

In recent years we have been noticing the rise of social media channels as a way for businesses to communicate and engage with their customers. According to Statista, social media is predicted to reach around a third of earth's entire population.

Since its popularization, back in the 90's, the Internet has come a long way. In the last 25 years, websites have changed dramatically and these changes have also generated new dynamics of personal and professional interactions, influencing consumer habits and requiring new marketing strategies in which brands have to quickly adopt an approach centered on the users.