Carlson's Web initiative helps guests shop for rates

Hotel & Motel Management, June 21, 2004 by Bruce Adams

Aruba -- Carlson Hotels Worldwide partnered with Sidestep, a search engine for travelers, to offer information on its web sites about its branded hotels and competitive hotels.

Users can download an applet that searches all the major travel sites by number of stars or price for all Carlson brands except Regent. Guests will be able to click on competitive hotels to leave the Carlson brand Web site.

"This is a radical approach, but people are doing it anyway," said Brian Stage, executive v.p. of sales, distribution and reservation services for Carlson Hotels Worldwide.

"Guests are comparison shopping on the Internet, so we aren't offering them options they don't already have," said Christine Brosnahan, v.p. of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide reservations and distribution services. "We want to make it simple and easy to book online. If people understand rates and the value they are buying, that will increase our revenue per available room."

The site would not be biased to Carlson hotels, because that would destroy the value and credibility to guests, Brosnahan said. Guests also can provide online feedback about their stay at all Carlson brands through a new feature called "Rate Your Stay." She said the brand Web sites will post positive and negative feedback and edit out names and obscene language.

Carlson will offer an interface with Travelocity in June and with Expedia in October so rooms booked through those channels will be controlled electronically by Carlson's central-reservation system rather than by those companies faxing information to the hotel.

badams@advanstar.com