How do you make your hotel reservations? By phone to an 800 number, via a travel agent, through your preferred airline's website, or perhaps you call the hotel directly? The internet has been the growing way to access hotel information and make reservations for the last several years. Now, with online bookings for leisure travel expected to skyrocket to one-third of all reservations by 2013, several major hotel companies have launched www.Roomkey.com, in an effort to obtain more direct bookings, thereby reducing the amount of commission they pay to travel websites.
The companies partnering on the new site are Choice Hotels International which includes Quality Inns, Sleep Inns, Clarion Hotels and several others; Hilton Worldwide - Hampton Inns, Doubletree, Homewood Suites and other brands that include the Hilton name; Hyatt Hotels Corp. - Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Place, Park Hyatt; InterContinental Hotels Group - Holiday Inns, Candlewood Suites, Staybridge Suites; Marriott International - Courtyard by Marriott, Residence Inns, Fairfield Inns; and Wyndham Hotel Group - Wingate, Hawthorn Suites, Microtel.
Now, with www.Roomkey.com, travel shoppers can access a single site to find the best prices for all of the hotels offered by these six mega-hotel companies. The website launched in beta format last week and eventually plans to allow for hotel reviews by past guests. Initially the site will only offer U.S. hotels, but the plan calls for expansion to English-speaking countries overseas.
On average, hotel companies pay 20% of the purchase price to online travel sites. With online bookings growing by leaps and bounds, the hoteliers hope to obtain a larger percentage of their business directly either via their own named website, or by way of Roomkey.com. It is also a new way for hotels to discount their rooms without having to put the lower prices on their primary site.
In a press release the company said: "We believe Roomkey.com will provide consumers with an innovative resource that will give them unprecedented confidence in their booking decisions by fulfilling their hotel search needs with comprehensive and trusted content."
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