The Billboard Effect: A Phocuswright Evaluation

Summary

For several years the travel industry has heavily debated "the billboard effect" – the media impact of a hotel's participation in an online travel agency (OTA) merchant program. While direct bookings are easy to track, it has become evident that OTAs, via their promotional capabilities, also account for bookings made on other channels such as the hotel's own website. In 2009 and 2011, Professor Chris Anderson of Cornell's School of Hotel Administration conducted the first published research designed to measure that impact. A 2012 report, Distribution Channel Analysis: A Guide for Hotels (DCA) , summarized many of the criticisms of Professor Anderson's research and then excluded OTA media effects in an evaluation of the costs of OTA participation. Phocuswright commented on the DCA report in a recent spotlight
(see Sage Advice for Hotels: Another Point of View on a Popular Industry Report).