Report on Search Engine Manipulations by Hotel Reservation Agents Predicted Microsoft bid for Yahoo
Released on: March 22, 2008, 12:10 am
Press Release Author: ThatPRGuy.com
Industry: Consumer Services
Press Release Summary: Control and manipulation of search engine results is critical to the success of hotel reservations booking agents and their web sites, according to a report that also predicted the Microsoft bid for Yahoo.
Press Release Body: Pierrefitte-es-Bois, France - A free report warns hotel owners and managers about the manipulations of search engine results by hotel booking web sites and agents, and the same report also predicted the bid by Microsoft to take over Yahoo.
More than 60 percent of travelers make reservations online, but often cannot book directly with a hotel because the reservations agencies use tactics that make it nearly impossible for consumers to make a direct connection with a specific hotel.
The free report details the "dirty tricks" used by booking agents and hotel reservations web sites to control the travel consumer. It also explains how hotel managers and owners can quickly and easily regain lost Internet business that the booking agents are trying to take away.
The free report - "The Hotel Reservations Scam, and What to Do About It" - authored by travel industry expert, Herman Thuy, is offered online at http://wwwInterbed.com. In the report he explains that the fight to control search engine traffic includes all major industries. When the report was issued in September 2007, Thuy predicted that Microsoft would make a bid to take over Yahoo in order to gain control of search engine traffic and advertising, which happened as he predicted in Feb. 2008.
Thuy is not alone in his warnings about the manipulations of search engines by the travel industry. The management of Ryanair ("Europe\'s favorite low cost airline") recently (Nov. 6, 2007) called online hotel booking agents and web sites "the greatest deadwood, rip off middle- men and the costliest parasites in the travel industry."
Thuy instructs hotel owners and managers how they can verify his claims: "Use a search engine the way travel consumers use it. Search for two words, your city and hotel. Your web site will not be on that first page because the scam artists control all those listings. Consumers cannot find you and often do not even know your hotel exists at their next destination."
A quick check for "Paris hotels" brought up over 1 million results. The links on the first page are dominated by booking web sites and agencies, making it nearly impossible for the average traveler to deal directly with individual hotels.
"Booking agents have the search engines rigged so that travelers will only find the agency web sites and will not find the sites for individual hotels. That way they capture all the online reservations. Market surveys of travel consumers reveal that when given the choice, travelers prefer to deal directly with the hotel of their choice," said Thuy.
The free report not only informs hotel owners and managers how they are being duped by the hotel reservations web sites, they receive specific instructions on how they can regain full control and recapture the business they have lost to the unscrupulous web sites and agents.
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