How has ICT impacted hotel booking Today?

Today, there are many online agents that make the reservation of hotel rooms much easier, cheaper and more time and cost efficient. 

Transaction cost is minimal for consumers as hotels are willing to pay for the fee to advertise their room rates and other details on these online agents. Hotel will pay for these charges so as not to lose out potential customers. Online agents like, zuji.com and ctrip.com allow consumers to compare hotels' room rates of their choice of destination with just a click of their mouse. In this way, hotels are not able to have over-priced rooms as there is complete information, unlike in the past, where information on hotel room rates are asymmetrical, thus consumers will benefit from this evolution.

The Internet allows large amount of information to be processed and loaded within seconds. For instance, Asiarooms.com allows travelers to make reservations over the Internet, at almost anytime, anywhere with reference to thousands of hotels, resorts and other forms of accommodation in two hundred different locations in Asia, Europe, Oceania and Middle East . Their partners include, Hilton Hotel, Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn, Mercure and et cetera. 

The online travel agents also have pictures of hotels and rooms, information on prices and special packages uploaded on their websites. Some of which brought the online business to greater heights by partnering with Google which includes Google Map functions on their websites to provide finer details on the exact location and the surroundings of the hotels. 

Travelers may also write reviews and comments of their stay at the hotels on the websites of the online travel agents. Consumers can, therefore, have a better and clearer picture of what they will be expecting for the price that they are paying for their choice of accommodation. This will reduce the number of complaints and the dissatisfaction level as the customers would have adjusted their expectations accordingly before they arrive at their choice of hotels. 

Online hotel reservations is also a good choice for making impromptu travel arrangements, as information is readily available at almost anytime, anywhere in the world. 

The process of booking hotel rooms is much simpler quicker and more efficient as compared to the traditional room reservations through the telephone and facsimile. One can also make hotel room reservations even after office hours which could not be done previously without the ICT evolution.

Several large online travel sites are, in effect, websites of travel agencies. These websites send the hotels' information and rates downstream to literally thousands of online travel sites, most of which act as travel agents. They will then receive commission payments from the hotels for any successful transactions made on their websites.

Lastly, people can book directly on the individual hotel's website. An increasing number of hotels are building up their own websites which allow them to market their hotels directly to consumers, without a third party, which will remove the third party cost from the consumer totally. Non-franchise chain hotels require a "booking engine" application to be attached to their website to permit people to book rooms in real time. One advantage of booking with the hotel directly is the use of the hotel's full cancellation policy as well as not needing a deposit in most situations.

To improve the likelihood of filling rooms, hotels tend to use several of the above systems. The content on many hotel reservation systems is becoming increasingly similar as more hotels sign up to all the sites. Companies thus have to either rely on specially negotiated rates with the hotels and hotel chains or trust in the influence of search engine rankings to entice customers.