Hilton hotels catch up with dot-coms

Businesses who made their names and their fortunes long before the internet came along must not rest on their laurels - instead they must do more to catch up with the dot-coms.

That's according to Ian Sloan, director of content for the Hilton hotel chain, who said his company was forced to bring its online strategy in line with sophisticated pure-play dot-com travel and booking sites. He now plans to more than double the number of bookings placed on Hilton's hotels website within the next four years.

Speaking at an Interwoven customer conference in London, Sloan said his company developed its customer website in response to the success of travel booking sites such as Expedia.

Before Hilton offered direct online booking, it had to pay a commission to the pure-play travel sites each time a room booking was made online. Sloan also said the Hilton brand was commoditised by these services, thus reducing its value.

Sloan admitted the hotel chain "needed people to come direct to Hilton" to make bookings and to counter the negative effects of these other online booking services.

The Hilton website has performed well since its launch in 2003. It met targets for return on investment within 12 months and now handles 10 per cent of all room bookings - the group is aiming to raise this to 25 per cent by 2009.

Sloan said the company is now interested in exploiting new web technology to further its online offering because "we're now in a screen-based world".

Potential plans include expanding the site to include versions for Australasia, China and India as well as taking advantage of mobile technology.