Independent hotels in Europe need to work hard to drive direct bookings and move away from their dependence on online travel agencies. In fact, their very existence might depend upon it, according to a recent survey by Phocuswright and h2c.

The study, which compared the independent hotel markets of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. with that of the U.S., found that a large majority of these properties are now reliant on OTAs for their business.

European markets consider direct web to be their most important channel but are more reliant on intermediaries such as OTAs for their online bookings than bigger hotel chains, according to the Phocuswright report.

from Pocket
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