Online Booking Blues

“When Internet booking started [in the mid 1990s], there was fairly good data that showed that the customers they [online hotel sites] were bringing to the table were, in fact, different than our traditional customers,” says Christie Hicks, senior vice president, global sales, North America for Starwood Hotel and Resorts. Now, it “has taken on a life of its own,” says Hicks. “I don't think we as an industry on either the planner side or the hotel side understood what that impact was