NEW YORK -- One of the side effects of Marriott's Preferred Travel
Agency program is an ongoing tiff between Marriott and Choice.
Shortly after Marriott announced the program, Choice ran ads in
trade publications (including Travel Weekly) that told Marriott
"Shame on you!" Marriott's Bruce Wolff, in turn, criticized Choice
for offering discounts on Internet bookings, a practice Marriott
does not engage in.
Choice offers 10% discounts on the Internet, but the chain's
Bill Todd said these discounts are available to both customers and
travel agents and are fully commissionable.
Wolff said Internet discounts and single-image inventory should
be more important issues to travel agents than 8% commissions given
to some agents under the program. In his opinion, the agent suffers
most when there are different rates available through the Internet,
the CRS and the property.
"I'd be very surprised to see discount rates being offered by
any hotel chain that are not available to travel agents," said
Todd. "If it happens, agents need to stand up and support the
vendors that are supporting them."
Choice has more than 4,000 hotels in its portfolio. Currently,
agent bookings through the Internet account for approximately 4% to
5% of the company's business.
"If agents want to use a phone, computer or the Internet, we
don't have a preference," said Todd. "We just want to make sure
it's easy and efficient."
Although the air industry has made Internet discounting a
relatively common practice, the hotel business seems to be shying
away from offering lower customer-only rates through proprietary
Web sites.
"Where would that leave me with a corporate client? Where would
that leave me with a travel agency?" said Swissotel's Chris Riga.
"There are lots of other ways to go about it than making enemies
with them. We would be crazy to do that."