The online hotel bookings and airline business is a ripe target for brand abuse, but it is brand abuse of a different nature than we see used in other industries. Unnecessary commission payments and online traffic lost to competitors are costing major hotel brands and airlines several billion dollars a year. To some degree, the travel industry is a victim of its own success in e-commerce.

 

Hotel brands face a unique brand abuse challenge due to the fierce competition for travelers via paid search and other online marketing tactics. Hotels use a variety of online channels to capture leisure and unmanaged business travel with their own websites delivering the majority of bookings. These online channels are the same used by online travel agents and aggregators who compete with the hotel brands themselves to attract customers. The experience of the hotel industry underscores how brands need to be more vigilant about protecting their bottom lines and their customer relationships on the Internet. If not, they risk losing customers and revenue to competitors or paying commissions on business that is rightfully their own.

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Brand abusers are also becoming more sophisticated in their practice and deployment of misleading websites. Spoof sites are appearing more and more on search engines and once indexed they are transformed into websites containing explicit content or affiliate marketing programs in order to fraudulently generate revenues. This is a very advanced traffic diversion method and shows how fraudsters can evolve their strategies.

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Furthermore, being an airline with worldwide destinations makes an airlines vulnerable to brandjacking activities at local destinations potentially making dents. As local customers searching for the airlines are targeted by fraudsters and are being redirected to booking aggregators or other affiliate programs creating unnecessary costs for the airline. In many cases customers are redirected and end up booking flight tickets with a competing airline resulting in revenue loss.

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Tailored consulting services include;

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• Online Brand Risk Analysis

• Digital Brand Vulnerability Research​

• E-commerce Security Strategy​

• Affiliate & Revenue Loss Mitigation

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Contact us for more information about our consulting services developed for the Travel & Hospitality industry.​

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