Show HN: Scout – See lower direct hotel rates as you browse online travel agents
I&#x27;ve spent the last three years building a hotel property management system. I hate OTAs. They are gross middlemen who charge criminally high commissions to hotel operators. And as much as I philosophically support what you&#x27;re doing here, both Roomkey in general and Scout in particular, you&#x27;re barking up the wrong tree.<p>At the point where a customer is searching on Expedia or booking.com, you&#x27;ve lost. These sites have aggressive reward programs and are tuned machines to get people to buy.<p>The better approach is actual property-level differentiation that makes people want to stay at a particular hotel. If your customer sees hotel inventory as essentially fungible, which is what most of the undifferentiated inventory on booking&#x2F;expedia is, they&#x27;re going to pay commodity prices for it.<p>The chains need to step up and market directly to consumers, and GIVE ME A REASON TO LIKE THEM. Right now it&#x27;s all sort of meh. Hilton, Hyatt, Rodeway, whatever, I just don&#x27;t care, give me the lowest price and I&#x27;m there.