Promoted from a regional intern to Global Sales Coordinator, I was tasked with addressing two problems around online distribution business development: restoring pricing integrity across wholesale and receptive operator channels, and growing a new generation of OTA accounts globally. Accounts grew through the 2008 financial crisis while most of the portfolio contracted. Booking.com's North America share of Starwood business grew from 3% to 15%.
Receptive operators and wholesalers bought hotel room inventory from Starwood in bulk at the start of the year, at a steep discount, committing to sell that inventory inside travel packages where the hotel's price was not visible to consumers. This "opaque" pricing model worked as long as inventory moved through the traditional distribution chain. When it didn't, operators facing unsold pre-purchased inventory would sell it off to third parties, who would list the discounted hotel rate openly on consumer-facing sites, creating a rate parity violation. Starwood's own "Best Rate Guaranteed" program would then flag the cheaper price, and someone had to trace it back to its source.
Traditional distribution chain: how it was intended to work
What changed: disintermediation and the pricing problem it created
For more on the economics behind opaque pricing and net-rate models: Commission vs. net rate models in hotel distribution
Wholesale and receptive operators were moving from offline B2B sales into online last-minute B2C inventory. Working with legal, I put together an online distribution contract addendum with a "do not distribute" list updated continuously with known best rate guarantee violators. In exchange, operators received a net rate 15% below our best available refundable rate, with additional concessions available for volume commitments.
When a consumer found a lower hotel rate on a third-party site and filed a Best Rate Guaranteed claim, the claim created a paper trail that needed to be followed back to its source. This meant tracing which distributor's allocation the room had come from, how it had been sold outside the agreed channel, and which contract term had been violated. The tracking work informed contract renegotiations with operators and built the evidentiary basis for shutting down the specific channels where violations were concentrated.
BRG tracking produced intelligence on which third-party sites were receiving discounted inventory and which intermediaries were supplying it. This research supported the global sales team's negotiations with wholesale and receptive operator partners, providing documented evidence of specific distribution violations and pinpointing which contract terms were needed to close the leakage. The contracts that emerged formalised the rate plan transition and introduced onward distribution restrictions with real teeth.
OTAs had captured outsized share during the post-9/11 demand collapse, and most hotel brands spent the recovery years trying to limit how much further that went. The directive here was more nuanced: grow the channel, but on terms that protected rate integrity and locked in pricing and inventory controls before individual hotels could give them away. The accounts existed but had no formal structure with Starwood: no global contracts, no rate parity commitments, no account management framework that could drive hotel participation at scale. The opportunity was there; the infrastructure to capture it was not.
Dominant in European leisure travel and expanding globally. North America represented an underdeveloped share of their total Starwood volume relative to their scale, the primary growth lever in the portfolio.
Southeast Asia's leading accommodation platform, growing in relevance beyond the region. A formal global agreement was the prerequisite for structured growth with Starwood properties outside its home markets.
Dominant in Japanese domestic travel within the Rakuten ecosystem, with potential to capture Japanese outbound travel to Starwood properties globally as the platform expanded internationally.
National booking platform with established corporate travel partnerships. Well-positioned to drive incremental Starwood bookings across the Americas through its corporate client base.
These were among the examples of accounts with clear growth potential. The broader portfolio included additional regional accounts.
01
Regional pricing meetings
Coordinated Starwood's participation in regional OTA pricing meetings across the United States, organized in a tradeshow format where market managers could meet directly with hotel Revenue Managers. This lowered the activation barrier significantly. Instead of responding to a cold outreach email about a platform they hadn't heard of, a Revenue Manager could walk a convention floor, get questions answered in person, and evaluate participation on the spot. Attendance converted into sign-ups at a meaningfully higher rate than outbound campaigns alone, and being invited by our Online Distribution team served as a stamp of approval.
02
Structured hotel outreach
Developed a Starwood-approved outreach template giving hotel-level sales managers a consistent, credible way to bring OTA partnership opportunities to their Revenue Managers. Each message led with business potential specific to that hotel's market, drawing on occupancy benchmarks and competitor platform presence, rather than a generic platform description. A financially grounded argument moved faster through property-level approval than a corporate directive, and produced higher-quality commitment from the properties that agreed to participate. Account details were stored in the same documentation system used for established partners like Expedia and Travelocity. Any account that refused the main terms of the distribution agreement received a flag in that system, keeping the portfolio from accumulating partners who had opted out of the rate parity commitments the contracts were built around.
03
Global distribution contracts
Negotiated formal global distribution agreements with OTA retail partners to expand Starwood's inventory presence in North America and other underpenetrated markets. Distinct from the wholesale contracting work in Mandate 01, these agreements were about adding new sales channels for retail room inventory, not closing distribution leaks. Each agreement included rate parity commitments for eligible rate categories and defined account management responsibilities on both sides. The negotiations were contentious: OTA partners had grown used to operating without formal commitments, and Booking.com's rapid growth in 2007 gave them leverage. The contracts held, and the accountability framework they created was the prerequisite for the volume growth that followed. Without it, Starwood could not drive hotel sign-ups systematically or hold any partner to consistent participation.
Booking.com, North America share of Starwood business
Growth rate, 2007 to 2008
Booking.com year-over-year growth with Starwood during the financial crisis, when most travel accounts were contracting. Starwood internal account reporting.
Portfolio comparison
OTA accounts grew while most of the Starwood distribution portfolio declined in 2008
Flash-sale platforms including Rue La La and Gilt Group (luxury lifestyle deal sites that sold hotel rooms at steep, time-limited discounts) created a specific problem: their discount depths were incompatible with rate parity and gave Starwood's larger OTA partners a legitimate grievance about uneven treatment. A hotel room sold at flash-sale pricing appears in metasearch and creates downward pressure on that property's standard rates across every other channel. These platforms were wound down as part of the same program that was expanding the contracted OTA relationships above.
The channel discipline decision and the global contracting work were the same argument in two directions. A formal global contract that commits hotels to rate parity holds value only if the channels that violate it are actually closed. Rue La La and Gilt weren't footnotes; they were the visible evidence of whether Starwood controlled its pricing environment. Closing them was the move that made the rate parity commitments in the new contracts credible to the partners those contracts were designed to protect.
If you are reviewing your hotel distribution strategy, I'd welcome the conversation. Open to consulting work and Director or senior management roles in hospitality, loyalty, and payments.
Get in touch More case studies →