To Ensure Success Travel Companies and Hotel Chains need to manage Market Reputation, Competitive Positioning and Pricing

…Price Intelligence helps travel companies and hotel chains monitor a full range of competitive categories to shape market strategy and success…

Vienna, Austria. – July 14, 2010 – With the Summer holiday season for 2010 now reaching its critical final stages for bookings and purchasing from consumers, online travel operators and hotel chains are now anxiously looking at what business they will capture in the next six to eight weeks.  For many operators the trend for consumers making late booking decisions and looking for the cheapest deal has grown in the last year or two with the global economic downturn.  Whilst for many companies this is a threat to revenue and profits, it can also be a huge opportunity for those operators able to ride this market with the kinds of deals and pricing those consumers are looking for.

Lixto Software, a leader in web data extraction and analysis technology, believes that Price Intelligence is a key way for travel companies to be successful in the current market.  “Companies need to focus not only on offering the lowest prices necessary, but also the best packages and deals,” said Jason Houle, VP of Travel Solutions at Lixto.  “In addition, operators also need to monitor feedback on their services and pricing on the internet as this can have a direct impact on whether consumers will purchase a holiday from them or another provider.”

Another challenge facing operators is monitoring online channels to ensure that rankings, pricing and packages are consistent and that suppliers are complying with rate parity agreements.  “This is a real issue,” continued Houle.  “Many operators and hotel chains think that they can go to large distribution and comparison websites and get all this data in one place. In reality, it is only by visiting each website where a company is listed that this kind of data can be accurately gathered and analyzed.”

In addition, online travel companies and hotel chains using Price Intelligence solutions are able to extend their set of strategic options beyond just pricing policy; e.g. regarding strategy around products & markets, distribution channels, internal reporting structure as well as customer perception.

Although pricing itself is important, the ability to gather data points on customer reviews and feedback, as well as ranking, is increasingly important.  Called Sentiment Analysis, the kind of technology needed to gather this kind of data is only just becoming available and Lixto is one of the few companies able to supply this as a bespoke product for the travel sector.  “Many companies think that they can just spend a fixed budget on price management and monitoring of key websites, either by manual or other methods,” continued Houle.  “In reality, this kind of data needs to be gathered from multiple websites in real-time and the data immediately analysed and presented to the business for agile decision making and planning.  More basic methods of information gathering and analysis are simply no longer effective or viable.

Using Price Intelligence technology, data is gathered in real-time, mashed-up so that data can be viewed by region, competitor, type of product or supplier etc.  This is then analysed and pre-configured reports and templates can then be sent electronically to sales & marketing decision-makers, CXO level management and pricing and compliance teams so that any action can be taken quickly and effectively.

“In today’s market having the agility to see an opportunity and act upon it is critical to success,” concluded Houle.  “Whilst operators don’t want to pricing any lower than is competitively necessary, they recognize its importance in driving revenue in the current market.  Equally, having the right products, reviews and rankings needs to be managed in the same way.  With Price Intelligence this is all possible in one package.”