An OTA Contract Rate is a narrow marketing approach, offering a direct contract between your property and one Online Travel Agent.  This can be strategic as there are many perks that are offered your property because of that direct agreement.  When these two are combined, it offers a comprehensive global and targeted approach to online distribution.

Contract Rate/Merchant Model Programs

Participation in the Contract Rate or Merchant Model program will guarantee preferred placement of your property on some of the major Internet Travel websites. Not only will you get preferred placement, but your property will also be positioned with additional information, included additional marketing information and exterior/ room type images.

Contract Rate programs are agreements between a particular travel website (i.e. Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline) and a property. Often times, these travel websites require deep discounts on your rack rates (~25%), but will provide preferred placement and access to additional information on your property. Almost all the major travel websites have Contract Rate programs.

BookingCenter does allow you to manage this program through our software. For more information on this program, Pricing GDS and OTA Programs

Another popular Contract Rate program is Booking.com.  They are atypical because they do not require a discount on your rack rates, instead they charge a commission on the backside of the reservations.  We can also setup your interface to Booking.com.

Expedia has take the “let’s offer everything” approach and allows you to choose from the traditional Contract Rate procedure (discounting up front) or the new Booking.com technique of charging you commissions in the rear of the reservations.  You choose which program you’d like to set up when you obtain an Expedia Market Manager.