HotelChatter

HotelChatter:
Let's kick off with your gas promotions. Gas packages are a big deal this summer but Hotels.com have been offering them for four years now. How is it received?

Scott Booker:
The gas rebate is one of the biggest promotions we do all year. Every summer the demand for gas goes up, prices go up and people who were thinking of taking driving vacations, start to rethink that.

We are the first we know of in the online travel agency side that started to offer a gas rebate. We made it easier to obtain this year too. It used to be a paper mail-in rebate but we've done away with that and you can do it right on the site. You fill out the coupon on the site and once you have completed the stay, we send off a gas card.

We have partnered up with five or so gas companies like Exxon, Mobil, Shell. It's regionally done. We switch it up depending on where you live.

And every year we find ourselves extending it beyond July 4th because it's so successful.

HotelChatter:
Do you have any other hot summer promotions or deals travelers should check out?

Scott Booker:
We have access to a lot of great rates and inventories. We load up our new deals on Fridays and Tuesdays are when we send out our email newsletter. So if you check in on those days you should find something. Also, we are offering 30 percent off for Fourth of July hotel stays.

Additionally, we do a Deal of the Day. These are deals we think the consumers should be aware of. It happens a lot in NYC where a hotel needs additional occupancy. So we'll work with them and come up with a Deal of the Day. It happens periodically. We also have 24-hour sales where room rates are only available to book during a 24-hour period.

HotelChatter:
Other than offering different hotel deals, how do you stand out from your other competitors?

Scott Booker:
Hotels can make or break a trip. Each trip is very different. One night in NYC for business is completely different from taking the kids to NYC for a weekend. We try to make people understand this on the site.

For us to be successful and to help consumers find the right trip, they need to hear the real skinny from other travelers. So we highlight reviews in a big way.

We have reviews for each property on the site and the reviews can only be submitted by people who have booked and stayed through us. It's not like TripAdvisor.

We also have some of the best rates out there and we have deals with hotels that allow us to not be undersold. Because of our large size and the relationships we have with hotels, we are very competitive on the price.

Ed. Note: Hotels.com is part of Expedia.

HotelChatter:
What if we find a better price on one of your competitors' sites. Will you match that?

Scott Booker:
If you book on our site, or not, and you find a better price on other sites, we'll match it. Only if there are some extreme circumstances involved, would we not match it.

HotelChatter:
Anything else Hotels.com does differently?

Scott Booker:
Most online travel agents charge a fee for when you have to change or cancel your reservations. We did this until May 2007 when we found that it's not very consumer-friendly and we got a lot of complaints. So we got rid of those fees. It makes sense. Things change and plans change all the time. If we allow them to do this without getting penalized, then they will come back.

We've also implemented rate calendars at the end of last year. The way this works, is if your plans are flexible you can look through this rate calendar on the property page and it will show you a bunch of price points for different days.

Other sites use color coding to show which days are cheaper or more expensive but we're actually providing what those prices will be on those other days.

HotelChatter:
Now, what happens if a hotel booked through Hotels.com is sold-out when the guest gets there? Like we saw happen at Six Columbus with Quikbook?

Scott Booker:
What happens is unfortunate but it's part of the hotel industry.

If it does happen, call us and we can find you a new hotel. We can help you find a comparable hotel or better. Most times it's a better hotel.

HotelChatter:
But wait! Shouldn't the hotel be doing this for the guest?

Scott Booker:
The hotel should already be on it. But again, in many cases independent hotels won't have relationships with other hotels. They might not be as motivated to place you in a competing hotel. But we have lots of different relationships.

Also, some other retailers and travel sites like to hide their phone number. We started off as call center business in the 1990s so we have a large call center infrastructure.

We are happy to have you call us. we know travel is a complex sale, things can happen and we'll take care of things of us.

HotelChatter:
You recently changed your logo. What was the reason and what do those up and down arrows signify?

Scott Booker:
We went through a re-branding exercise in the back half of '07 and early '08 that culminated in us wanting to put people over transactions and to change brand image. That's when we started changing the colors on the site and calling out guest reviews. We needed to update the look and feel of Hotels.com. The old logo was out of date and stale.

We went through various designs and this one was pretty neat way to go out at it.

The arrow buttons mean different things to different people. Some say it's the elevator buttons, some say it's the guest ratings. We left it nebulous so people can interpet it anyway they want to.

HotelChatter:
We kind of thought it was like the drop-down menus on websites for selecting items. Or even the up/down buttons you use for searching on a website.

Scott Booker:
Ah...that's pretty interesting. We don't think we've ever heard that interpretation before.

Thanks Scott!

Got a hotel booking question? Send it to us and we'll answer it. Just a reminder: we're not a travel agency. We can't make the reservations for you.

Tags: Hotel Booking Tips / Hotelsdotcom / Scott Booker / Interviews / Booking Hotel Rooms / Hotel Booking Sites

by juliana