Disintermediation in the travel sector – a point of view from BTO, Florence Italy

Disintermediation is the them of this panel discussion this afternoon – disintermediation is changing the business model.

• there is a blog called disintermediazione.it (wondering if there is an equivalent blog in English about disintermediation.com is a parked domain name)
• Big players are concentrating online transactions based on their power – small hotels find it hard (if not impossible) to intercept online business if they are not present on major portals. Only major corporations have the financial and technical capabilities to break loose from the chains of this new form of online intermediation represented by the booking portals.
• hotels do need an intermediation, they are not prepared to receive directly the end user, creating problems and requires a mediatory effort to make things work. There is always an intermediation, when I buy pay per click I am relying on a search engine to be my interface … well that’s a point of view.
• there should be more talk about a new approach to intermediation rather than disintermediation
• disintermediation and concentration: the big players have a brand (they had it offline too) and this facilitates a seamless migration from offline to online: nobody has a problem purchasing an airline ticket from british airways or book a hotel on the hilton website

I found the discussion not very satisfactory – I was expecting to find a correlation between intermediation and added value, There was no talk of value for money.

I’ll pick up this topic in a post once the event is over.

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