Эссе на тему: "Should the Hospitality Industry invest more in managing multi-cultural issues?"

Are on-line booking agents good for the hotel industry?

Nowadays, people basically solve all their problems via the Internet, due to the
convenience.
Therefore, online booking is gaining more and more popularity among tourists, including
through special aggregators (agencies), such as: “booking”, “air bnb”, “Ostrovok.ru”, “agoda”
and many others.
For example, according to data for 2019, “booking” occupies almost 68% of the online
booking market in Europe.
Services help to quickly book a hotel anywhere in the world, and employees of the
companies provide all services as quickly and efficiently as possible. Thanks to this, the
consumer can make a reservation without assistance in his personal account, receive an instant
confirmation of payment and know for sure that the room will be booked.
But what lies behind this, is online booking good for the users (consumers) and the hotels
themselves?
Of the pros and cons of this cooperation, the following can be distinguished:
Undoubtedly, a huge plus is that the sites have collected a large number of offers, the user
can choose a hotel to his liking and book online. Aggregators offer a "rich" set of filters and
sorting, allows you to book rooms without registration, as well as add hotels to your favorites.
There is competition - this is a possible disadvantage, but users still browse the list of
various offers and see the hotel, some may choose it. Without being listed on the aggregator's
site, the hotel would have been less well-known. Consequently, the hotel receives additional
advertising and promotion despite a lot of competition.
Also on the positive side is that aggregators are also interested in selling rooms through
their services, so they come up with various loyalty programs and special exclusive offers "only
for subscribers", new users or frequent travelers. For example, a program from "booking"
"Genius". He regularly reminds website visitors how many benefits they will get if they book
hotels on this platform. In addition, many other marketing gimmicks are used.
1. Registration and registration.
The owner of the hotel creates an account on the agency website and undergoes a small
check of legal documents. The procedure may vary slightly depending on the country.
As a rule, large hotels (and not only) are located on several online sites at once - on
“booking”, “agoda” and others. And usually the owner has to manually upload prices through his
personal account, which is a very long time.
However, to automate the process and avoid human errors, you can use a special tool -
"Channel Manager". It integrates with various aggregator channels and allows you to load prices
at once on all sites where the hotel is represented.
2. Terms of contracts.
Aggregators often dictate "tough" terms of cooperation, which hotels cannot change. For
example, the rule of "parity" prices, according to which a hotel cannot sell the same room on the
same date at different prices.
However, it should be noted that this rule does not apply in all countries. For example, in
the Russian Federation, the Federal Antimonopoly Service has banned the inclusion of this
clause in an agreement with Russian hotels.
3. Hotels receive funds in advance.
When pre-booking and paying online, hotels receive money in advance before the arrival
of the guest. This helps the hotels to get a good amount of working capital, as well as guaranteed
payments from guests. However, sometimes guests can cancel. However, some booking
conditions have a "non-refundable" mark.
4. Commission fee.