REVERSE AUCTIONfor online travel agenciesBy Saluquia Gomes Hotel online distribution December 10th

Reverse travel auctions' history Late 1990’s: resulty of the emergence of internet based

inline auction tools. Early 2000: onlihnereverse auctions started to become

mainstream and the prices that FreeMarkets had commanded for its services dropped significantly.

Consequently, the reverse auction gained consolidation on the market place.

In the meantime, eBay created a online auction model where buyers compete to each other for their highest price for a particular item.

Finally, online travel compagny then copied the Ebay model with pionner comany such as priceline.

Understanding travel auctions’ principles

Inconvenient: Customer can only make one

bid, meaning he has to be careful about the price he submits.

Sometimes there is no going back without having to pay cancellation fees.

The client has to wait to see if the bid will be accepted before buying a ticket elsewhere.

Advantages:•Consumers place a bid for a ticket based on the maximum amount of money they’re willing to pay.

•The wait for the bid to be accepted by the selling company.

Skyauction.com’s example

The website’s hotels types

Luxury hotels worldwide Majority of waterfronts’ hotels Nature privildge Big room inventory Very attractive Heaven places

Sites that give customers advice on using reverse auctions

http://www.support4business.com/auctions.html http://www.purchasing.com/article/225083-Pfizer_s_pr

ocurement_provides_12_tips_for_reverse_auction_success.php

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Reverse-Auctions---Tips-for-Successful-Bidding/954338

http://en.oltiby.eu/resources-reverse-auctions-information

http://en.oltiby.eu/resources-reverse-auctions-information

Key points

Reverse auction is not such a big deal Customer can save a great amount of

money but can loose some as well It is important to read carefully the « name

your price » conditions The number of reverse auction sites is

constantly growing and among them « are those we should not trust

A hotel can best participate in a reverse auction site by…

Being more visible Making sure it does not destroy the

brand image According customer a good level of

security Not refusing to many bids Choosing the appropriate period of

time to sell