Attribute Based Shopping - A blessing or a bane?
Digital Marketing in Hospitality
— 11 experts shared their view



Marketing professional, speaker, lecturer and journalist in the field of Digital Tourism
While ABS is something which comes naturally in the airlines model, where customers already expect to pay for certain variables, in the hospitality it cannot be taken for granted. Just because it worked for airlines, it doesn't mean it will for the hospitality industry. see more

Assistant Professor at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
Customers don't buy attributes, customers buy solutions to their problems. What customer problems could ABS solve? How could ABS make customers' lives better or easier? The fate of ABS will depend on the answers to these questions. see more

Adjunct Professor NYU Tisch Center for Hospitality and Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant
Attribute Based Shopping (ABS) is a good start, but I believe One-to-One Pricing, powered by AI will be the absolute winner for both travel consumers and hoteliers. ABS is already a departure from the current revenue management one-to-many pricing approach, but 1to1 Pricing will take this to an entirely different level. see more

Partner at Soler & Associates
Where ABS could be a game changer is in search, recommendations and in pricing. Too many are focused at how this can be a method to sell ancillary revenue, like the airlines did. But the application in hotels could be totally different. Pricing intelligently based on features would be mainly an RMS level use of ABS. Guests would still see and book a final price, but the room price would be build by pricing the features within the rooms. see more

I love the customer-centred vision at the heart of ABS. The promise of 'infinite SKUs' and stay packages that are experience-led rather than room-led is intoxicating.
For many hotels, the digital sophisticates, these new capabilities will likely be put to good use. For other hotels, I suspect the rewards of ABS are many years away. The practical challenges of delivering a web of attributes in-house, the complexities of correctly pricing both rooms and attributes and the organisational inertia will stymie many optimistic ABS initiatives.
I hope that the early adopters will quickly identify a killer app for ABS that the rest of the market can follow. In the meantime I'd suggest hotels start to experiment with upsell technologies (like Oaky) as a half-way house and opportunity to identify what attributes their guests will pay more for today.

Founder | CEO | Futurist
Attributes have the potential of making the act of choosing obsolete and unnecessary: if virtual travel assistants could access more data than just ARI, they'd be able to filter the noise out on behalf of the traveler. Today's filter-bubble frustration will be a thing of the past, ergo, conversion WILL increase. see more

Entrepreneur & Business Developer
Attribute-Based shopping? Customers and technology may be ready, not hotel managers! It's pretty clear that from a customer perspective, being able to choose the desired room amenities, pay the hotel according to this choice, would be the ideal experience. see more

Partner at Hudson Crossing
We at Hudson Crossing have been working hard on attribute based shopping concepts since 2017 and we believe that ABS represents a fundamental, and highly lucrative, shift in the way hotels will distribute products in the coming years. Further, this shift will take a lot of effort for hotels, but we'll argue here that outsize rewards will accrue to early adopters. see more

For customers who know what they want, attribute-based sales approaches are an attractive capability that allows travelers to customize their stay to a much greater extent than is afforded with room types alone. If done well, it can increase conversion, increase revenue, and increase utilization of unique room types. see more

Co-Founder at TRAVHOTECH
I'm torn. In saying that I'm certain it will become mainstream because airlines have taught the customer this is a level of normal behavior. Although my personal position is that I feel it removes a level of hospitality and may bring about a race to the bottom. Hotels and resorts are not airlines. see more

It is undeniable that consumers want a better, more relevant experience. Accustomed to frictionless browsing and shopping experiences from the likes of Amazon, Uber and AirBnB consumers are expecting the same from their preferred Hotels. Being able to customize and curate a highly individualistic experience will become a key differentiator and attribute based shopping (or as I like to call it Customer Choice Shopping) will enable Hotel companies to match the consumers desire with their offerings at an unprecedented level. see more