Hotels have been working hard to win more travelers to " book direct " on their companies' websites, but are consumers listening? In fact, hotels are not alone. All service providers in the hospitality and tourism industry want their customers to make purchases directly on their websites, but consumers want to search and compare various options before making a decision. So, to convince customers to purchase directly on the service providers' websites, companies must understand where their customers "hang out" in the cyber marketplace before they make the purchasing decision, as well as where they end up buying their services. The white paper " Understanding the Travel Consumer's Path to Purchase " by Eye for Travel provides some business intelligence in that regard. The report combined a large panel consumer data of online transactions and surveys into the analysis, revealing the following results: The places where customers purchas
Hospitality/Tourism Management | Service Marketing | Information Technology