The agency model adopted by Expedia and other OTAs plus the aggressive introduction to the U.S. market of Booking.com and its agency model, made the hospitality industry’s overdependence on the OTA channel painfully visible. It is time for the industry to fight back and shift share from the OTAs to the direct online channel

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In The Americas, past experience, loyalty programs and price play a bigger role in customers’ purchase decisions compared to other world regions. Past experience is reported by 15% of all guests as their primary motivation for brand choice, more than in any other global region.

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This week 2 hotels have moved up on the UK Top 30 Twitter list. The Chesterfield Hotel in Mayfair is still at the top of the list!

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WikiVoyage – The Wikimedia Foundation hopes that its site will contain information about and links to relevant commercial enterprises that serve travelers, such as hotels and restaurants, but does not want Wikivoyage to serve as an “advertising brochure” or “Yellow Pages.

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Introducing – The second edition of PwC’s European cities hotel forecast for 2013. This features 19 of Europe’s most important gateway cities.

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Expedia entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 61.6% equity position in trivago, a leading metasearch company headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany for total consideration of €477 million including €434 million in cash as well as €43 million in Expedia common stock.

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While some hoteliers facing lower occupancy rates may be inclined to offer short term discounts to bring in guests, it is important to remember that aggressive discounting to help stimulate demand can have serious long term consequences.

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A panel of experts on Tuesday attempted to cast some light on the road ahead in a Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International webinar titled “Keeping Up with Trends.” Their insights during the 90-minute session touched on a variety of topics, ranging from pricing, distribution and mobile. Here are the top 10 points raised,

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ooking.com now claims to be the number one online hotel reservation service in the World, and its flat commission model has been replaced by one of bidding for position on the first page of a destination, with hotels paying over 20% in commission to be on the first page.

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