Five takeaways from EXPLORE to help your business today

The two-day event cemented our transformation to a travel tech company delivering better experiences to travellers and better demand to partners. Our trusted brands, B2B partner network and robust travel media network offer businesses of all sizes opportunities to connect with diverse travellers, extending reach and driving more demand.

We introduced our travel media network, a powerful combination of our first-party data, platform and advertising solutions to connect with travellers when you need it most. In addition to world-class creative capabilities, our unique network gives you access to a full suite of on-site advertising solutions that are flexible and scalable for any size and budget, as well as off-site solutions that keep you top of mind with travellers wherever they are—online, offline and everywhere in between.

One Key unlocks flexibility for travellers to cross-shop across Expedia^®, Hotels.com^® and Vrbo^®, and creates opportunities for our partners to increase demand and attract high-value guests.

Over 50,000 properties offer Members-Only Deals to our Gold and Platinum members¹—as well as additional Members-Only Deals offered on air, car, cruise and activities. And now, destination marketers can also cash in on the loyalty game with our new advertiser-funded loyalty product. You can drive more bookings to your destination by funding bonus OneKeyCash for travellers booking hotels, which they can spend on future trips.  

According to our Q2 2024 Traveller Insights, global Q1 traveller searches increased by nearly 25% quarter over quarter (QoQ), indicating that traveller intent remains strong, and that travellers are planning further ahead.³ Explore effective ways you can optimise your presence in our marketplace to help increase your visibility to travellers.

At this year’s EXPLORE, we unveiled the ‘Perfect Somewheres’ awards—a first-of-its-kind programme celebrating a selection of the top 1% of hotels on the Hotels.com app. Winning hotels were selected based on proprietary guest experience data, which factors in traveller reviews, interactions with staff and ratings on property facilities, as well as condition.

Our guest experience score puts the traveller even more at the core of our marketplace. Hotels receive a score for guest experience and offer strength (out of 100)—regardless of your hotel’s star rating. The offer strength score assesses the attractiveness and competitiveness of your listing. Ensure that your rates, availability, pricing, promotions and descriptions are up to date to elevate your presence in our marketplace.  

Taking action today may help you qualify for next year’s ‘Perfect Somewheres’ awards. Log in to Partner Central to check your guest experience score and identify opportunities for your property to improve the experience for travellers.

EXPLORE revealed a myriad of ways that our AI-powered tools help protect your business and control rate integrity, so you can focus on growing your revenue.

We’re helping more hotel partners grow revenue and maintain rate integrity by optimising their B2B distribution strategy across our network of more than 60,000 partners spanning travel agencies, airlines and corporate travel companies. Once exclusive to major hotel chains, our B2B distribution rates are now available to regional chains and independent hotels, bringing you more control over your inventory and pricing.

The travel industry loses more than $21 billion annually to fraudulent transactions.⁵ Our FPaaS solution helps safeguard your business from financial loss by screening bookings, reducing unauthorised account access and minimising chargeback losses.

More than 60,000 brands and 160,000 travel agents rely on us to power their travel experiences using the same proven technology that powers our brands. Our B2B partners can use the enhancements revealed at EXPLORE to make these travel experiences even better for their customers.

White Label Template is a configurable site that elevates the shopping, booking and servicing experiences for travellers. We’ve improved our earn messaging placements to help make them more visible and clearer to travellers, helping brands build trust while increasing conversion.  White Label partners can also now offer ‘pay later’ hotels, providing more flexibility and choice to travellers.

Rapid API partners can boost revenue with new commission incentives and mobile promotions. Partners can now easily identify properties with short-term commission incentives tied to specific booking and stay dates and use our new mobile promotion flag to promote discounts to travellers.

We’re finding new ways to recognise travel agents by expanding our rewards programme to Canada and Mexico, in addition to the US. We’ve also expanded deferred payments to China, helping agencies in 31 markets secure their cash flow by not requiring payment due on properties until closer to the travel date.

If you missed out on this year’s EXPLORE conference, stay tuned for updates on next year’s event.