Duetto’s concept of 'open pricing' is but the first step in a long journey towards helping hotels extend the trust they’ve already built with 'customers who sleep in their beds' to the booking process:
Said Patrick Bosworth, CEO and co-founder of Duetto, 'According to Google and Comscore, people shop 20 websites before they buy a travel product. People say this is because consumers love choice.'
'I disagree. I believe the consumer is full of anxiety – they don’t know where to go to get the best deal, they don’t want to be the only one who paid too much. So they search and search until they feel comfortable.'
Bosworth: The customer is full of anxiety and so they search and search until they feel comfortable. This must change, he says.
“But if hotels could build trust with their guests who sleep in their beds and hold events in their hotels extend that trust to the booking process, and say, ‘we are always going to offer you peace of mind and that booking direct with us is always your best deal’, then we would have unlocked something real. ”
Unfortunately, he acknowledges that hotels are behind in this regard and it is Duetto’s vision to lead a movement to get hotels up to the point where they can compete with third party intermediaries and move the customer from indirect to direct.
With the recent acquisition of Orbitz by Expedia, effectively creating a duopoly in the US market, executing on this vision has gained more urgency. After the acquisition, Priceline and Expedia combined will control 80% to 90% of hotel bookings across OTAs in US and while this may be good for consumers, it may not be good for hoteliers.
Bosworth told Mashable in this article, “It is increasingly difficult for a hotel company to decide not to work with Priceline or Expedia. The consolidation creates efficiencies and pools even more resources in a small number of behemoths that can dominate marketing spend through online channels. And they have tremendous negotiating leverage with hoteliers.”
For Duetto’s vision to be realised though needs a cultural and philosophical shift in hotel thinking. “This is not just about revenue management or forecasting but a fundamental change in the way hotels approach sales and marketing.”