The business impacts of time to market in the travel industry

Thousands of properties are added daily to a supplier’s inventory. Expedia alone makes 10 thousand updates to its inventory weekly. For OTAs to stay competitive and ensure they’re at maximum selling potential, it’s important for them to always remain up to date with their current and newly contracted supplier’s inventory.

Contracting with a supplier can take weeks to months. And once a distribution agreement is reached, the goal for any OTA is to make the newly added properties available to their customers as soon as possible. The time frame it takes to make these new properties available, also known as time to market (TTM), is one of the most crucial factors for securing both the supplier’s and OTA’s revenue potential.

But why does TTM have such a big business impact in this environment?

TTM is an important element for any industry dealing with commerce where products become outdated quickly. Defined as the length of time it takes from a product conception until it’s available for sale, in travel, where many OTAs offer similar products and services with short lifespans and timelines, it’s one of the biggest priorities.

So what are some of the drivers behind the importance of hotel inventory TTM? And how can both OTAs and suppliers speed up TTM for their own inventory?

Two core drivers include customers’ booking behaviors, and the reality that consumers shop in multiple places and constantly compare offerings.

Customers’ booking behaviors are greatly influenced by seasonality. Because summer is peak travel time, customers book their travels 3 to 6 months before. This is considered peak booking time. So if an OTA wants to offer properties in time for the high season, they need to be made available more than 6 months prior.

This reality is especially important in the midst of contract negotiations with a new supplier. When an OTA negotiates with a new supplier 6 months prior to high season, time can’t be wasted, and they can’t afford delays to property availability if they want to remain competitive.

Additionally many suppliers offer the best deals to travel businesses when a property is newly added to their inventory, adding to the pressure to make properties available as soon as the contract is finalized.

Constant comparison. In this industry, travel companies (especially consumer facing) are constantly compared — hotel options, price differences, various benefits. Just one little variation, or if the property they’re looking for isn’t available, can lead to losing the customer.

The only way to survive, let alone be competitive, in this world of constant comparison is to ensure short TTM with the most updated and complete inventory. This has a clear connection to revenue potential as well. The faster an OTA’s TTM, the higher the chances are that these shopping customers will book the key properties, leading to a quick return on investment for recently signed supplier contracts.

So, can travel businesses do more to reduce TTM and maximize competitiveness and revenue potential? Yes. That’s where efficient mapping methods comes in.

Mapping impacts on time to market. As previously mentioned, the timing for finalizing contracts with new suppliers varies greatly, directly impacting TTM. The next critical step for making those new properties available is to map them. This is where an OTA can actually influence how fast those properties reach the market.

Until recently, the most common ways to map are either to use a third party provider or employ internal mapping solutions. Both options can take several weeks to over a month, and often lack quality. This creates problems with accuracy and inventory coverage.

Automated mapping maps hundreds of thousands of properties at 99.999% accuracy within hours, making them available the next day. By enabling OTAs to offer new inventory basically instantly, automated mapping directly affects TTM and increases their competitiveness.

If a property isn’t available, it simply can’t be booked. The biggest influence an OTA can independently have on TTM is during the mapping process, and the time needed for mapping can either accelerate or delay TTM. If it takes four weeks to map, instead of a day, four weeks of resources have just been wasted. To achieve the fastest TTM and the fastest path to revenue, OTAs should choose the fastest way to map.

To learn about how Gimmonix’s automated mapping solution, Mapping.Works, can transform your time to market, contact us at info@gimmonix.com.