Phocuswright 2015: Triptease touts Price Check accuracy as it closes in on driving £1bn incremental revenue

Phocuswright 2015: Triptease touts Price Check accuracy as it closes in on driving £1bn incremental revenue

London-based start-up Triptease says it will generate $1 billion incremental revenue for its hotel customers by Christmas this year. The firm’s Price Check widget was developed to drive up direct bookings by displaying OTA prices on hotel websites to give customers the reassurance that they are getting the best deal.

London-based start-up Triptease says it will generate $1 billion incremental revenue for its hotel customers by Christmas this year.

The firm’s Price Check widget was developed to drive up direct bookings by displaying OTA prices on hotel websites to give customers the reassurance that they are getting the best deal.

Charlie Osmond, Triptease co-founder and self-proclaimed ‘chief tease’, told the Phocuswright conference in Florida last week that accuracy was the key differentiator.

He claimed copycat firms have sprung up which have been found to offer only 50% accuracy on pricing, whereas Triptease was close to 100%.

“The hotel does not want to misrepresent their OTA partners on their websites. Guests could lose trust in Price Check. It’s very complex to get accurate pricing,” said Osmond.

Using the example of a hotel owner with two properties in Edinburgh, Osmond said Triptease has driven up the value of direct bookings by $500,000, representing a near 50% increase in revenue.

Triptease currently has 8,000 hotel partners and Osmond said: “By Christmas we will drive $1 billion a year in incremental revenue for our partners.”

Osmond said the firm has been able to scale quickly due to the way it flipped its model from being an inspirational content platform designed to raise hotels’ profiles via ‘word of mouth’.

He said the booking engines that power hotel websites want their customers to drive more direct bookings and the analytics that sit behind Price Check are also helping this.

This data is being incorporated into booking engine dashboards so that hotels can use customer intent insight to personalise messages and deals to further increase conversions.

Osmond said the key metric was the value Triptease offers to customers and claimed only one partner has dropped off the system.

“Triptease is great for hotels because direct is best,” he said. “All we are doing is bringing transparency to the market.

“I love OTAs when they drive incremental business. What we are trying to do is even the playing field by demonstrating there is price parity. People have a misperception that hotel sites are more expensive.

“If they want to book on an OTA, that’s fine and they probably still will, but there is a group of people who prefer to book with the hotel if they know it’s the same price.

“Accuracy is a massive differentiator, the other one is analytics. That’s something that hotels are getting great value from.

“We are very clear about who we are trying to serve and what we are trying to do. We have the hotels’ interests at heart. This is about transparency.”

Triptease now employs 48 people in London and New York, where Osmond has recently moved to as he looks to grow the business.

He was pitching Triptease during Phocuswright’s Travel Innovation Summit when firms compete for a number of awards and funding.