A year after Bidroom’s initial launch, the hotel booking platform has redesigned its website in a renewed bid to break with the high commission levels enforced by major online travel agents.
THE HAGUE – Wanting to compete with the market leaders in hotel booking, Bidroom hopes to lure price sensitive guests with its promise of being at least five percent cheaper than the top online travel agents. In an industry in which volume is king, price discounting has become a common strategic method to win guests. However, the way Bidroom negotiates its room rates is different from traditional hotel consolidators: hoteliers determine their own rates by setting a discount percentage that is subsequently deducted from the online advertised rates of selected OTAs. By doing so, hoteliers are given control over their own distribution channel costs.
In order to book a hotel room on Bidroom.com, guests put in booking requests which are sent to hotels along with the guest’s contact and payment details. After receiving a booking request, hotels have 48 hours to accept or decline the booking. As Bidroom is a fully private booking environment, rate parity agreements hotels might have with OTAs are not breached. Before being able to search and book for hotels, users are required to sign up to become a Bidroom member.
To give revenue managers more flexibility over their distribution and pricing, Bidroom is developing an integration with external channel managers. For hotel chains, a group accounts manager will streamline the management of different locations. The booking platform is determined to offer a sustainable alternative to traditional OTAs by leveraging all resources to make the booking process as pleasant as possible for both guests and hoteliers. Bidroom is currently signing up hotels in European countries and has ambitious plans to expand to other cities around the world.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
