Cutting-Edge Hotel Distribution and Booking Tools for 2026 | with Brian Reising and Oshick Shams
GAIN Momentum episode #100: Cutting-Edge Hotel Distribution and Booking Tools for 2026 | with Brian Reising and Oshick Shams
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the GAIN Momentum Podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. We have two members of the SiteMinder team here today to talk about what's happening in the world of distribution and all the other fun pieces of hotel technology. We have Brian Reising and Oshick Shams. How are you both doing?
Brian Reising: Good. Thank you very much for having us, Adam.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, it's great to have you on both on board talk about how SiteMinders adding value for hotels, hotel. Brian, to start things off so we're all clear. Elevator pitch on SiteMinder and the overview of, in a general sense, what the platform does.
Brian Reising: Absolutely. So to go with our new relaunched slogan when we put you in demand. That is really our way of showing that the hoteliers, that the SiteMinder platform is the way you're going to acquire your guests. And from there, once you've acquired the guests, you can manage your revenue internally. So the thing that we always try to pitch with the platform is that it's a one stop shop for acquiring your guests and then also maximizing your revenue once you've got the guests in there.
Adam Mogelonsky: That's a great way to start things off. And I wanna unpack that a little bit. 'cause guest acquisition is a challenge in its own right. And when you're talking about this, you're talking about direct acquisitions. Right?
Brian Reising: It can be, but we can also help you on the managing your OTA side. So it's really however you are going to acquire the guest, we can help you in that manner.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Okay. So can you now color that in terms of these specific touch points by which you're helping guests acquire? You mentioned OTAs, which is channel management, meta search. where are you seeing, the best ways that you're helping guests?
Brian Reising: So I think the best way to frame it would just be showing You the. The way we separated on the platform with the product features. So we've got the, obviously the channel manager, which is what SiteMinder's been known for, 20 years and where we started. and we've just continue to improve that.
And we have the fastest connections and the most UpToDate connections with any of the OTAs that we are connected with. and then from there, if you are managing, as you mentioned earlier, internal bookings or direct bookings, we have, an in booking engine that you can use as well for people that wanna direct book directly with you and then to maximize that as well, we have what we call Meta Search Manager, which is, us helping you get, you own your Google business, hotel reviews. It's not reviews, but your, your hotel listing. Then from there you can set up the amounts you want to bid. You can see where you're gonna show up in the search.
You can control what you're listed as. And then on top of that, we also have what we call demand plus, where we manage all that for you. You give us some parameters for the bids and how much you wanna spend and what your goals are, and then we will manage all of that. the meta search for You
Adam Mogelonsky: that's a really, that's a really great service, right? Demand plus you think about it, hotels are the biggest, one of the biggest obstacles is time management. They don't have time to really look at their tech stack and really hone, hone their expertise in that because they're just too busy. Running the day to day. So if you're able to offload that and, help the hotel stick to its core in terms of operations.
Brian Reising: Yeah, so Demand Plus is a great way if you don't have, if you're a small Hotelier and you're managing the Dayday operations in hotel, you don't have a hands. Deal with the minutia of changing your bid times and your bid amounts for, Google Business and Google Ads. So what we will do is manage that for you. So you will tell us the parameters you wanna work with, and then we take care of everything. And the really good thing about that as well is not only does it take that off of your plate, but with our transparent billing, and you will see everything that you're bidding on and the success rates that you've had. So you can always come back to us and have us change things in the future.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Yeah, that's, that's a really great service. I like that. and part of that as well, you mentioned earlier the idea of a one stop shop, and we've heard different terms around this, the all in one platform. I'm wondering, could either of you would just explain the benefits of a one stop shop versus a sort of single endpoint best in breed strategy for designing a.
Brian Reising: Yeah, those are dangerous waters to, to wade into because you do have, say you, don't wanna have any integrations. You wanna have everything as it is. But we ourselves do integrations with PMSs, RMSs CRMs across the board. So it really comes down to what's best for the hotel. So I think, and, in the end, you do want to have fewer failure points, so it's, better to have everything integrated into one if it's possible and it works for you.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, that's a good point. And right now it's 2026. there's a lot that can be done with technology. what's on the forefront with SiteMinder?
Brian Reising: our focus going forward is definitely our, new product, which is Dynamic Revenue plus what we call Dr. Plus. This is going to give you basically an RMS it will help you manage your hotel it can be as hands off as you want it to be, or you can be as involved as you want to be. Dr. Plus is gonna give you information on any events that are gonna be in your area, so you can manually change your rates if you'd like. But we're also gonna give you suggestions on your rates as well, and we'll show you your competitors' rates in the area. So at the palm of your hands, you're able to either allow us to change those rates automatically based on the suggestions we're giving you. Or you can keep it manual and then we'll give you all the information and you can change your rates, as you see fit. And, but with either way, you're going to have, the ability to gain as much market share as you can, knowing ahead of time what events are gonna be in your area and what rates you're competing against with your competitors.
Adam Mogelonsky: So this is, it's an RMS. Module or a product that is directly embedded into the platform and connects into the channel manager, the CRS, the central reservation system, and has other, cool elements to it.
Brian Reising: Exactly. Yeah. And it's, if you have SiteMinder now and you wanted to upgrade that's a simple click and you can basically use that to be along with your PMS, your rate setting tool.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Okay. So within one platform, above the PMS, which holds the inventory, you have the distribution of all that inventory as well as tools to help with dynamic pricing.
Brian Reising: Exactly, and you can choose to have that set automatically where once you've set it, we will move your rates for you based on the information that we have, or it can set alerts, and then in the mobile app you can go in and decide, yes, I want to move this or say no, I'm good with where we're at.
Adam Mogelonsky: So the mobile app, this is, the app that is designed for managers to look at and to make decisions while they're, either in traffic or cleaning rooms.
Yeah.
Brian Reising: depending on the level of, involvement you have in your hotel. If you're a revenue manager it's great because you can get into the weeds with all of the details of your competitor rates, times that you need to change it. Events that are going on. Programming things down the road and setting rates into the future. Or if you're a busy Hotelier that sometimes has to clean the rooms yourself. You can have it pop up on the mobile app, change your rates, and then go back to what you were doing before.
Adam Mogelonsky: you've mentioned, event, compressions, I guess multiple times here. And of course, I'm just always thinking about, the Taylor Swift effect, right? Where she announces a concert date and you want to yield up three, four times and really capture that uplift. could you. As a technical person, could you walk us through how that would occur in terms of making sure that hotels really get the most value from those sorts of compression events?
Brian Reising: Absolutely. So obviously as, you say, knowing about those events in the. The greatest amount of lead time ahead of time is going to be crucial 'cause you're competing against all of your other, your cohort in the area. So what we do is gather information for the first 90 days that you're on the platform using, Dr.
Plus Dynamic Revenue Plus, and we see the trends and the information in your area. Then after that, we're sending you that information as far in advance as we can. To give you as much lead time as possible to change your rates. And as you mentioned, like the Taylor Swift effect, that is a big event that most people are gonna have information on fairly quickly.
But there are a lot of smaller events that happen around hotels that may go by the wayside when you're not paying attention. If you've got a youth soccer, tournament in town where you're gonna have hundreds or thousands of families coming into your area, you may not be connected into the industry or into the community like that, so you might not know what's happening, those kind of things.
But what will pop up, you'll see that a couple months out, and you'll be able to change your rates accordingly.
Adam Mogelonsky: And within that RMS system, are you able to look more granularly at all, at what types of rooms are moving and also what segments are, really generating the most demand?
Brian Reising: Yeah, that's a great question and that's one of the really key factors in Dr. Plus is we're going to show you the results of these movements, good or bad. So if a suggestion is made that you need to increase your rates, you'll have the ability in our. Insights tool to see if those rates were successful or unsuccessful, and that based on your occupancy rates and the occupancy rates of your competitors as well.
Adam Mogelonsky: yeah, it's enabling, as I say, it's enabling a hotel as a continuous learning environment based off of the data.
Brian Reising: Exactly, and that's what the goal of the first 90 days of being on the platform is for us to gather that data from the cohort that you're competing against and also the information that's coming in around you. Put all that together so we can offer you a comprehensive suggestions on your rate movements.
Adam Mogelonsky: this RMS normally is attached to the PMS as its own provider. And the advantage that with SiteMinder not only is the one-stop shop, but it's directly connected into the channel manager and the CRS. So you could you talk, are there any features in Dr. Plus that really connected into the channel manager to determine things like which channels are, selling the best, which channels are, adding the most value to hotels, and then pushing those rate back?
Brian Reising: Yeah, and you would really wouldn't have to go all the way to the Dr. Plus product to see that information. In our, our standard channel manager, we'll provide you with the insights as well that can show you where you're. Having the most success and what channels. And then also if, you're using the insights tool, we can tell you what channels are most successful in your area so you can distribute your rooms, as most effectively as possible. we have lots of clients that stay just with booking.com or Expedia, and they're not getting the kind of, occupancy rates that they like. So we'll put them on a, product like Channels Plus where, and to give you a little history on that is Channels Plus is where we will set you up with all of the OTAs that you're not a part of. We'll manage those all for you for one flat rate. And then we'll get you larger distribution to some of those lower, cost, lower margin OTAs that'll get more eyes on your rooms from different locations.
Adam Mogelonsky: So the, tail spend you could look at in a lot of ways where Booking and Expedia are the big two, and then there's a lot of other ones that maybe are too hard for one revenue team to manage.
Brian Reising: Exactly. If you're gonna utilize 10 15 OTAs, which some hoteliers do, it's a very difficult thing to manage with if you have direct connections to all of those, whether that be through your PMS or just directly with those OTAs, so through the Channel Manager and through Channels Plus, that can all be managed for you and without any surprise fluctuations in the rates.
It's one flat rate across the board, and we manage it all for you.
Adam Mogelonsky: And, going back to the beginning, we talked about. Or I mentioned direct bookings, and that is the highest net revenue value of any channel because you, don't have the commissions. And therein we have teams that there are, one of their big challenges is the direct booking shift where they're trying to move bookings from the OTAs or other third parties into the direct channel. And I'm wondering, what would you. What would you advise for hotels to, to really move people over to the direct channel so they can get more value out of existing revenue. That's, that's gonna be on the books.
Brian Reising: Yeah, that's a, good question. And obviously all hotels want to, avoid that margin fee that's coming with the OTAs, even though it's giving you more eyeballs on your rooms. I think it really comes down to how you position yourself, in your website design, the information that you provide about the hotel, whether you've got tours, all of those things need to be included. And not to go down a worm hole of ai, but as AI becomes more important, and people are using that as a way to find their hotels, you have to be sure that the description of your hotel and the up upselling offers that you have are as precise as they can be, because that's what those LLMs are looking for, is to get as much information as possible to give the best match possible. So it's gonna be really crucial going forward that your website design your information, all that stuff is up to date that way you can draw people directly to your, either your booking engine or if you use Metas, search directly to your Google Ads so they can book directly with you.
Oshick Shams: if I could just elaborate on that one more. a big thing that we're seeing, and you know, we release this in our changing Traveler report is, especially in Americas, a large majority of US travelers preferred to book directly, more so than any other market that we're seeing. And so a lot of that has to go with, like Brian said, not only having the website and the data up to date, but really using these websites and using the information that you're posting to tell a narrative about the property.
On top of that, having things like, loyalty and reward programs, things like that are going to attract buyers to come back and, book directly.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, it's, really, it's all about those incremental wins and really making sure you have everything covered across the entire guest journey. But, Ashuk you've mentioned, is it a quarterly publication?
Oshick Shams: Change travel report is yearly.
Adam Mogelonsky: So could you talk about what goes into that report and how hotels can leverage that to get more, to make improvements for.
Oshick Shams: Yeah, absolutely. So for the chain travel report, we speak to over 12,000 travelers, from, I think it's over 14 countries, something like that. I think it's is the world's largest, consumer survey, in the industry. And so what we're doing is we are. Understanding, learning about the actual behaviors, travel.
Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, and the last report was published in December, 2025. So we're, recording here in late February, 2026. There still is time right, to implement the changes from that report. I'm wondering could you highlight some of the key findings in that report and, the observations so that way hoteliers that are listening, have those morsels and can act upon them inside of 2026.
Oshick Shams: Yeah. Yeah. a couple key points is one, just in general, the intent to travel is increasing. so the amount of people that are. I have plans to travel, internationally over the next 12 months. is increasing year over year since, pre pandemic levels. we are seeing that more than 60% of the travel travelers are now traveling, more so for special events rather than seasonality.
And really what that's seeing, what we're seeing, from the hotel side of that is that they're no longer relying solely on peak season. So there's still peak seasons, but it's being more leveled out with those shoulder seasons as well, because people are traveling for more specific occasions, whether, it's the Taylor Swift concert or obviously, we have the World Cup coming this year.
and so more folks, so for special occasions rather than just for seasonality,
Brian Reising: You'll also, uh, to go along with that, you're gonna see a lot more deal hunting. Before it was high season and you would hunt for a deal within the high season. But now, uh, with a travel flexibility, you're seeing people that are going off season on purpose because they know that they can get a better deal from the hotel at that time and from the rest of their ancillary travel.
So, plane, taxis, things like that is gonna be cheaper as well in the off season.
Adam Mogelonsky: that's huge. That's a huge shift that you're touching on and there's probably a whole lot of factors that go into that. hybrid work, work from anywhere sort of thing, but. If you think about it, this, leveling off of Peak and Low, where originally people would only travel in peak. Now we're seeing people choose hotels specifically because there's a deal anytime of year, and they're more flexible as to when they can travel.
Brian Reising: Absolutely. And, you've seen that in the past where Europe was very crowded in the summertime because people wanted to go in during the good weather and their kids were out of school. And now it with people like you, you mentioned before Adam, is with work from home and flex scheduling and things like that, Europe in the wintertime is becoming more popular, and now those peaks and valleys are leveling off to where rates are fairly sustainable across the entire year.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, the, phrase I've heard is it's no longer peak season and low season, it's peak and cultural season because
you actually have, You can travel in winter to Europe and you can actually get a ticket to go into the world class museums without being completely, sardine in so
to speak.
Brian Reising: absolutely. Office Week, February. 40 degrees every day and rainy, but it was, they were still packed with tourists everywhere we went.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. it speaks to the future of travel, and therein, I know that every listener here is gonna have the question. I understand that's the mega trend. how can I use data to better, to produce, to unlock more value for my hotel based upon this?
Brian Reising: And that's where the tools that we have come in handy is we can tell you where again, your cohorts are getting their travelers from. give you an example. If you're a hotel in Florida that gets a lot of international travelers, we can tell you that you're getting, 40% of your travelers are coming from India, 20% are coming from Brazil, and then there's a mix of others. We can show you what your cohort or your comp set are getting and where they're getting 'em from. So you may be missing, for example, Asia may be a very big player for some of the places around you in, Florida. That may be because you have a connection to a goda and your OTAs. So that's the kind of stuff that we can tell you to get more eyes on your rooms and make sure that you're drawing as many, as from, as the bigger a pool as possible.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. That seems to me like a, like an 80 20 solution, right? You've identified the 20% of work in terms of activating that connection. That's gonna produce 80% of the results. very cool. earlier you did mention the buzz term, of artificial intelligence, and therein there's always the question, how are you using AI to improve your platform and to add more value to hotels?
Brian Reising: That's the, key word in every conversation we have now is how are we gonna use AI and how are we gonna help the hotels, integrate with AI so they can be more successful? I think it's important to, to mention what type of AI you're using. there's machine learning, there's AIG, there's. Just standard LLM things, I think it's important to let 'em, let the customer know, especially what you're doing for them. So with Dr Plus, it's more of a machine learning side where we're gathering information in huge cohorts and then we're parsing that out for them. And then we're using AI to make, help make those decisions and make the best judgment we can for the rates. When, you things like AIG, agentic ai, those are making decisions as far as, how you're functioning going forward and can actually think on its own. And that's not really ingrained in anything into the hotel world right now. it's probably coming down the road, but right now it's, more of a gathering all this large sets of information and making sure that the, the recommendations that we're giving are informed by them.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. The, an insight engine, I guess you could say.
Brian Reising: Absolute.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. So could you color that now in terms of, as you said with that Agoda example, could you color this similarly to talk about, one way that you've used this insight engine to help hotels to, improve their use of the platform?
Brian Reising: Yeah, absolutely. if you speak specifically to the insight side of things, we, any hotel that comes on to the platform, the SiteMinder platform. It doesn't have that kind of visibility into what their competitors are doing or what their actual success rates are. That's a big deal too, is just knowing when you've set your rate at this, what was your success rate from booking.com for this month? And if you set your rate at this and you gave them this level of inventory and you saved this level of inventory for direct bookings, what was your success rate? And that's really the key is knowing if the moves that you're making are, succeeding or failing. So you can improve on those moves going forward.
Whatever rate decisions you make or where you're putting your inventory without knowing the success rates of these things, you're working in the blind.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, it's giving that light to make better decisions, right? And make data driven decisions as it's always been about, but adding that extra layer. And then I imagine on top of that, if we're talking about machine learning, you're. You embedding any sort of AB testing or multivariate testing?
Brian Reising: That one is over my head. I'd have to have the dev team answer that. You've gone past my limits of my AI knowledge there, but, I could definitely get back to you with a good answer on that.
Adam Mogelonsky: no, please, do. 'cause it's, it's definitely a buzz term as well. so prior to coming on the call, we did touch on the partner program and of course I bring that up because you're talking about recruiting another partner, which is to say SiteMinder's a huge. Company and you rely on teams and partnerships to make things happen.
Oshick over to you. I'm wondering, could the.
Oshick Shams: Yeah, absolutely. So we have a global partner program. I manage, the Americas here. And essentially it is a. A, a program that consists of, all players in the hospitality industry. So we work with, tech providers. We work with, hospitality management companies. We work with, independent consultants, experts, as we like to call them in the industry.
all playing together to make sure that we're providing the best service, and providing the best, pricing as well to the customers, There's can be a lot of distrust, not just in the hospitality, in any, industry when it comes to, purchasing new technology. And so it, it's a big, it's a big win for the buyer to have, a trusted advisor, who has a trusted network of partners that they work with.
And it's something that, we like to call the WHO economy. this is who I trust, but who do they trust? Who do they work with? So building that community, which is something that, we're all about. That's essentially the core of SiteMinders connected connectability and, our integrations and everything, and having that intertwined ecosystem.
And so, um, that really lends itself into our, our partner ecosystem as well having that, ecosystem of, like I said, those other PMSs, the RMSs, other tech providers, the expert consultants, the hospitality management companies, all of those, tie into us being able to provide the service to the properties that really need us..
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, the whole idea of distrust in technology is, 'cause there's a legacy systems that, over promise and under deliver. And that is, that is something that. Sadly, as part of our industry. So therein the question is, through the partnership program or otherwise, how is SiteMinder helping get us past that era of, distrust for a bigger and brighter future where the technology really enables hoteliers to be hoteliers and create these great experiences? Brian, did you have any answers there?
Brian Reising: Yeah. I think to piggyback on what Ash said is.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah.
Brian Reising: If you want to, hotel industry is massive, but it's also very local. So you are really concerned about what's going on around you and who you're competing with. So if, a somebody is going after a new technology, we can give them all the information in the world, but they're all, if they're not using that technology correctly and they don't have the help that they need to, get the most out it, then it's great to give them contact information or put them in touch with. Consultant that's a, an expert in the industry, in their area that has dealt with local hotels before. 'cause you get the best of both worlds. We'll give you the best technology, but then it will be also connect you with a local expert that is versed in all of your competitors and knows what's going on in that industry is probably a member of the associations that you're a member of. And you get both. You get them helping you with it, and we get the best technology from us.
Adam Mogelonsky: It's a, great answer. I love it. And, I think that it does take time to dispel that distrust, but having trusted partners and really deepening your use of a single platform can really help that.
Brian Reising: I, think one of the biggest things that we do to, help out our, If they're not working with us or if they are customers, is we will tell you if, we don't have something in our tool bag that can help you, we will find somebody that does. 'cause we like to think that we have a all-in-one platform, but there are edge cases where there's things that we just, we can't do. So we are not afraid to, connect you with another software company that can help you, or especially connect you with a local expert that can help you with it as well.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, the edge cases as software matures and becomes consolidated under one platform, new edge cases emerge as, tr new trends occur and new pieces of technology emerged to handle. Things that we never even thought of. as an example there, how does weather impact bookings and, and price and arrivals.
So that's three areas where you'd want more intelligence on to then direct things into you're pricing everything. Yeah.
Brian Reising: Right back into the DR side of things that all the information that you're putting into as opposed to. Most hoteliers saying, at this time of the year, I raise my a DR up to $120. just because that's what I do. maybe it should be at 1 35 or maybe it, if you're competing and other people are going lower, maybe it should be lower. As you said earlier, Adam, the data driven decisions and that, that means taking in all the data in the area.
Adam Mogelonsky: So now to segue to what's coming up, we, what we're talking about, what's coming up, but looking ahead to this year and then into next year in terms of hoteliers thinking, what can they do with their existing software and what should they look to deploy to really ramp things up to add more value? what trends are you seeing and what would you advise?
Brian Reising: I think it would go back to what we talked about earlier as far as. search. Search is really defining how you need to be pre present in the market and as more people are going to chatGPT or Claude, or any of the other AI tools out there and typing in really hyper specific things. I need a hotel with this many rooms that has kid, kid friendly amenities that is this close to this and things like that. You're gonna have to have all that information. Present in your, in the description of your hotel, and you're also gonna have to be very well placed in your distribution with OTAs in your direct bookings or you're gonna get passed over and they're gonna, that, engine that they're using to find you is gonna go onto the next one if they don't find any information on you.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, so we're talking about, machine readability, AI search, the buzz terms, whichever they are GEO, generative engine optimization, AIO. what would you advise for hotels to make sure that. They're front and center for any LLM that is, recommending hotel to guests?
Brian Reising: They've got to work on their, online presence. I know a lot of hotels have booking engines and they have their direct websites, but if that information is scarce or not. Explicit in any way, then the LL m's not gonna be able to pull it in. And if it is, it's not gonna pull in the correct information. So you've gotta be very explicit with what you're writing with. And there's things that are above my, my pay grade as far as how you can write to those LLMs that I wish I could get into more, but I can't, it's outta my wheelhouse. But maximizing that is where you're going to be able to increase your, the eyes on you coming from the AI search, but also just to the basics as well of keeping all of your information up to date using a channel manager so you can make sure you're getting the most out of your, of your daily rate, your revenue, all those things.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. you mentioned the term up to date and I was just thinking while you were saying your answer there, process where people, they put their inventory on their booking engine, they load up a website, then they think that it's, the task is done, but it's never really done with AI search.
You need to be constantly updating. And making sure that your content is fresh and aligned with how the LLMs are, are reading your website.
Brian Reising: Exactly, and I'm sure everyone who's used any of those, chat bots or search engines that are AI powered, you can see it comes back and we'll try to paint a narrative for you. It doesn't just answer your question like Google would it? It? Gives you some interaction to that. So it's gonna want that flowery language, so to speak, to give back to the, person because they're, the, LLMs are rewarded with the success rates that they get. So you may need to change your, the way you describe your hotel, you may need to add more things as far as, what's close to you. You may need highlight things that you haven't highlighted in the past because that's what is, getting you to the top of the list and those searches.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, within that, site Miner does have a booking engine product, is there any suggestions for how content is structured within a booking engine to improve how LLMs are reading the content within the booking engine, not just the website?
Brian Reising: We do have some information that we are presenting to the customers on that we have not released it yet. so I don't, wanna speak to that. 'cause again, I'd be outta my wheelhouse, Adam.
Adam Mogelonsky: Coming
Brian Reising: I could that it is coming soon and we are helping with that, but at the moment I don't have all the information on it.
Adam Mogelonsky: so well. You mentioned this, evening out of the peak and low season, particularly in Europe, and I'm wondering what other big trends in the hotel industry are you finding intriguing at the moment?
Brian Reising: Oshick , do you wanna speak to anything from the
Oshick Shams: Yeah, I can say, and just to emphasize, Just to elaborate on what we were just touching on. we see, especially what we released in the chain of travel report, I think four times as, there have been four times as much as many searches using ai.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow.
Oshick Shams: And using chatGPT and things like that.
Now, it's still, behind OTAs and direct booking are still above that, but it's at least, increasing as far as, whereas people starting their searches. but again, it's not always where they're finishing their searches. big trend that we're seeing is that direct bookings are still, the key for our hoteliers.
And so whether or not they have the presence and, you know, it's that, that billboard effect where, you know, they are coming up on as many. OTAs as possible. And so that name is still there. We're still seeing travelers that are understanding and seeing, what, deciding what property, and then like you said, if the narrative is right, if the, direct booking is available, they'll go and do and book directly no matter where they're finding the property.
Brian Reising: Yeah. And on along those lines also, I think a trend that we're seeing just specifically because we work with independent hoteliers more than we work with the chains. the chains have their place, but I think that as we see in the changing traveler report, there's more of a push for experiences and local flavor when you're going on these, when you're taking a trip. So hotels that have specific, very, yeah, for lack of a better term, specific experiences that you can have in that area are becoming more popular and people are searching those out, and that is part of the AI search is. no, no shade against the Hampton Inn, but people are looking to stay at a less corporate environment when they're going to New Orleans or San Francisco or Seattle or any of those cities in the US and Canada.
And when they do, they're, wanting to search out that experience beforehand. And so you're seeing people search things that they haven't searched for in the past. what sort of tours do you operate? Do you operate? Who do you work with that can show me around the city? Do you have any excursions that you offer?
Things like that are becoming more and more popular and part of the search because of the desire to have that local flavor when you go stay in.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, that's, both very interesting points, that local flavor and how that, how you reflect that both in your services that you offer or programs, and then how that's reflected digitally, across all channels. Oshick you raised a, good point there in terms of how people start a search and then how people finish a search in terms of, I guess the, funnel you could say, and just to confirm, you said that the growth of AI search is starting with the start of the search. So people aren't starting on Google or OTAs. Increasingly they're starting with a chatGPT or Claude. Is that what you're noticing?
Oshick Shams: So again, it's not overtaking the OTAs and search engines quite yet, but it's, it is increasing, drastically as to what we've seen in the past.
Adam Mogelonsky: And then, uh, how does that change as one moves down the funnel to the end of a search towards wherever they're going to convert, for that booking?
Oshick Shams: So as they're going in, it's, um, what Brian was talking about earlier. So the, they're essentially building or they're receiving a story or an itinerary almost at times of travel itinerary. And so they're understanding, what kind of place they're looking for, based on the experiences that they're looking for, based on who they're going with, based on how long and when they're going.
And they're getting, they're getting fed options from the chatGPTs from the Geminis, from these different, um, AI tools. And then from there they're transitioning to the whatever's listed in there. So whether that's. Coming in from the OTAs or whether that's from the search engines and they're going and identifying there, and then eventually, you know, whether that then it's just about winning the deal that's when you have your search engine up there. You have your, if you're booking directly, your discounts available and things like that, that you're gonna win customers over.
Brian Reising: to point also to that, Oshick is they, you said something really important there, that they're building their itinerary, but they're still at the end of that itinerary being built. They're still going directly to your website or to your direct booking engine to book the trip. So getting noticed is still.
Very important, but they're still coming back to you through the link to book directly at your hotel. And that's why a good booking engine and a good website are so important still, because you'll find that information in chat, jt, but you still have to go somewhere to book.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I, was. Add Oshick to what you said about essentially what we're seeing with AI search is a collapse of the booking funnel in a lot of ways, where it's all handled within one platform, the research and the discovery phase, and then the next part to that is what would you advise hotels, aside from everything else we've mentioned here, to help ensure that when that guest who's doing an AI search. they're not only getting the information from the direct website, but then the booking link is going direct to the website as well instead of to a third party.
Oshick Shams: Whatever that may be. One of the things that we offer is, the meta search. And so having those, Google Hotel ads and TripAdvisor so that when they're presented with the options and they click on those options and it's taking them to those, the different avenue, the different channels to get to that hotel, their direct search, their direct, booking engine is, right up there with those OTAs.
And so that's a great way to do it. Those ads, those, like we talked about earlier, they, we can see the conversion rate and it's just about visibility. If they see these different channels and they see these properties, listed multiple times, most of the time if they see that booking channel, that direct, avenue, right there at the top, they're gonna go to that one.
Adam Mogelonsky: I think that's a really good way to, to finish off there, is that it really is all interconnected. Your meta search and your channel management and the website content is all gonna be reflected into the AI search as the new emerging, buzzy, booking pathway. Brian Oshick anything else you want to add here before we close out?
Oshick Shams: I just, wanted to add that just in general, We talk a lot about the, we've talked a lot about, some of the reports that we put out, last year, at the end of last year and this year. And I think one of the main takeaways that we're seeing that I wanna, leave people with is that people are traveling more than ever than they have in the previous years.
They are spending more and they're doing it more often. And so it's, a good time to be in this industry and it's, a good time to be where we're at right now.
Adam Mogelonsky: It certainly favors, the hotels that have unique experiences to help stand apart.
Awesome.
Brian Reising: Yeah, I would end it with, AI changing things. But there are still some things that are, the, key things that you've done in the past are still just as important. Having a direct engine, making sure that you're getting that information out there for visibility, controlling your OTAs, it will change.
As we all know, AI is going to change this industry tremendously, but those key factors are still very important and how you manage them going forward and how you become visible to that AI search is gonna be the, key factor going forward.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, master the basics, right Brian? Been a fantastic conversation, can't thank you note both enough for coming on and talking about all the cool things that site doing. Thank you.
