Eh, Iīm not sure this is as inevitable as people assume (regarding the push to direct bookings). Sometimes itīs easy to forget how big the travel agent/third party business is....billions upon billions of dollars rest in the hands of third parties when it comes to hotel booking tools (whether weīre talking about booking.com or Jane Doe Travel Agent in Sarasota FL, the same idea holds).

Sure, the MOs of the world (and hotels in general) will try to capture as much direct business as possible (Iīm also hesitant to use the word recapture, as many consumers have been using agents/OTAs since day 1. You can only recapture something if it was yours to begin with). That said, in our lifetime at least, agents and third parties will hold a lot more clout than we assume.

And while some companies like MO are making amenities īeasierī to get for direct bookings, there are more and more companies/hotels popping up that are making it harder, if not more of an agent-centric process. (For example, how would you explain hotels who give commission to agents for clients who have booked future stays at a property, even if they booked it direct? Or clients who rebooked a future stay while still on property - direct - yet the hotel continues to pay the agent down the road? This happens more often than consumers would ever guess...)

Iīm speaking as a consumer - NOT as an agent here: agents arenīt going anywhere, and this ping-pong of direct bookings vs. agent bookings will go on forever.

(I also donīt think many realize how much some hotels love agents, which are basically a cheap sales force of thousands of people repping their hotels at a measely 10% commission. Hey, beats paying 17-30% to OTAs, right?) Itīs also too easy - in this forum at least - to concetrate on luxury hotels and how they act/react to agent vs. third party bookings. Donīt forget - there are thousands upon thousands of 4* options out there that thrive on agent bookings. (Itīs too easy to point to the MOs of the world, or the Bristols, for gaging industry attitudes)

As for Virtuosoīs booking engine...the thing is so flawed Iīd go so far as to call it a joke.

Donīt forget other consortia either - Iīd argue Signature has a much better relationship with hotels than Virtuoso (V is considered the big bully Amazon.com of booking consortias). And Signature has been offering upgrades upon booking for years longer than V ever did (hotel depending, of course).

I dunno. Sometimes this topic gets oversimplified (direct bookings, yay! agent bookings, booo), so I inevitably have to pipe in. There are like twenty sides to this story