Another catch phrase? Perhaps... But now that I have caught your attention let me elaborate on what I see as the next generation of Hotel Distribution.

Just as with web 2.0 or travel 2.0, I believe we will soon see the impact of this next generation web on hotel distribution. The new web has become more personal, now everybody can easily write on the web, and the consumer has gained significant control over how the data from the web is read. The data in the next generation web has been separated from the presentation layer and, thanks especially to Real Simple Syndication (RSS), this data is now released from the web pages. This represents a significant change from the first generation web, where websites resembled online brochures. In this second generation web we have thousands of services scrutinizing each new piece of online information, grabbing interesting bits, remixing them in new ways, and passing them along to other services. Each new addition to the mix is exploited in countless new ways, both by human bloggers and by software programs. Information is analyzed, repackaged, digested, and passed on down to the next link in the chain. It flows. (Johnson ) Furthermore, it should be noted that the web's transparency is being exploited and is forcing many industries to reevaluate their business models.

Until recently, hotels had many partners whom they entrusted with distributing their product. Even today these partners prove their worth year after year by delivering REAL results: bookings. But due to the transparency of the web, these partners have also become competitors to the hotels who are selling direct. Consistent pricing now seems to be the only rational choice to make the hotel's customer not feel cheated as he or she is evaluating the options. After all, why would a hotel encourage its customer to book via its partners for less, to in the end yield less revenue? The hotel customer might, in fact, feel cheated or unappreciated to pay more if he decided to book direct. Really, hoteliers should remain hospitable!

It's time for hoteliers to take a step back and reevaluate their distribution strategies. And this is why I believe we are entering a new phase with regards to hotel distribution. In the next generation of hotel distribution, hence the 2.0, hotels will make their direct contact with their customer a priority. They will attempt to be as hospitable as possible, and they will use the new web to do this. This will still include using the services of intermediaries, but in this new model they will take control of what information is distributed to potential customers and will distribute their rich information widely to ANY interested party. Additionally they will attempt to profit from the information that is provided by others and will respond to it where appropriate.

Let me be more specific to distinguish this model from the old. In the new model, similar to the wider web 2.0 characterizations, data will be separated from the presentation layer. It will be unlocked from the hotel's website and free for anybody to use. This way, as described above, it will be able to flow, be analyzed, repackaged, and digested by humans as well as machines or software. No longer will hotels lock this information on their websites or in their databases. Instead, they will make it easily accessible with RSS or other (data) syndication standards. Furthermore, hotels in the new distribution model will embrace other data produced by other web-services, for example peer-reviews. They will easily enable their information to be mapped and compared. Perhaps they will even make this available from their own sites. Because in this new model, the customer and being hospitable, honest, and true is what has become the priority. The transparency of the Internet simply demands this.