InterContinental Hotels Group now has 15 to 20 "direct-connect
solutions" with third-party intermediaries after striking a deal this week
with hotel booking agency Hotelzon, a top IHG European executive indicated to BTN on Friday.
IHG is "one of the last of the large chains" to move
to Hotelzon's technology, which uses neither the global distribution systems
nor the Pegasus GDS switch, Hotelzon chief executive Jani Kaskinen said. "There
is no one between the corporate client and the hotel other than us."
Hotelzon, which is based in Finland and has growing business
in the United Kingdom, China and the Nordic markets, books 1.5 million room
nights with 100,000 hotels annually. Kaskinen estimated that direct
connectivity will account for 50 percent of Hotelzon transactions following the
IHG deal.
"We have between 15 and 20 similar direct-connect
solutions in place with a handful of selected third-party intermediaries,"
IHG Europe, Middle East and Africa vice president for marketing and planning
Karin Sheppard noted in written answers to questions from BTN about the Hotelzon deal and its overall direct-connect
strategy. "Direct connectivity offers greater flexibility than having to
work through an aggregator. Our approach is to use direct connect for strategic
partners where obvious incremental value can be gained instead of a switch
connection. There are a lot of intermediaries that we work with where it is
more effective to pass the cost of developing and maintaining a connection on
to a switch or GDS. This is decided on a case-by-case basis, taking into
account factors from technical complexity through to commercial value."
According to Hotelzon, both clients and suppliers benefit
from a such connections through the client's booking partner. "When there
are other parties apart from us involved, it places limitations on what can be
done with a booking," Kaskinen said. "It means we get almost
real-time connectivity rather than it being updated twice a day, so we can see
pretty much the same availability as the hotel's front desk. It also makes
amendments and cancellations easier."
Such connections offer hotels lower per-booking distribution
cost and a fully automated process that includes electronic invoicing and
pre-payments, according to Hotelzon.