Doug Carr, executive director of distribution for Fairmont Raffles International, recently discussed the evolving world of digital distribution and the challenges faced by hoteliers. Here are his thoughts on Google, metasearch sites and the way consumers are shopping and booking hotel rooms.

How have Google and metasearch sites changed the way hotels book business and reach customers?
It’s all about being on the menu. Wherever the customers are and however they’re trying to find you, you have to be there. If you’re not on the menu, you’re not going to get ordered.

PhoCusWright says travel planners shop eight to 10 different websites before booking. Google Places and Facebook Places are more for someone who needs something right now. They’re going to pick an app, search and book. Mobile apps are changing the way things are going.

How, and how is Fairmont responding?
Mobile apps operate in hours, not days. Mobile is changing the landscape by lead time to book. People don’t shop as many places on a device. We’ve got to be sure we’ve got the right pricing and availability and more connectivity.

How do you approach metasearch sites and what are the challenges?
From a shopper’s perspective, I like metasearch: You go into one engine, and it crawls the web from different sites rather than doing it yourself. The challenge is that if a hotel entity isn’t participating with the metasearch engine, the site returns results from third-party intermediaries and the hotel doesn’t get the chance to say, ‘Come book with me on my site.’

That, as an industry, is something we need to have awareness about and figure out ways to get into that data stream. The metasearch sites will present users with three to five different options of where they can book, and they’ll partner with third-party intermediaries (like OTAs) and those will almost always get displayed. If the branded site or distribution partner isn’t working with that engine, you could be missing that direct-booking opportunity.

How does Fairmont make sure it’s connected to all the right places?
It’s hard. You have to work with metasearch engines contractually to get traffic. For us, and smaller- to medium-sized hotel companies, trying to get programming time to react to the technology of all these sites is challenging. That’s where Pegasus Solutions comes in for us. The bigger companies probably have the bandwidth and money to program directly, but we use Pegasus’ MetaSeach Service.

How important is the brand site now?
It’s all about making your site sticky. Personalization is key in today’s world. It’s ‘All about me.’ When someone comes to your website, there are ways to remember who they are and provide special offers. Brand sites have to offer that point of differentiation.