getaroom, getaroom, getaroom.com

getaroom.com, the hotel-booking site and call center business introduced by hotels.com founders David Litman and Bob Diener, just fired off $10 million worth of TV, radio and print ads in key markets across the country.

You can view one of the 30-second spots, unveiling the getaroom.com theme song to the tune of the William Tell Overture, on youtube.

"Name recognition is key to generating awareness and driving consumers to the getaroom.com website and call center," said Diener, in the press release announcing the ads. "These ads cut through the clutter and once you see and hear them our name certainly stays top of mind."

Litman and Diener delivered the advertising the old-fashioned way: They wrote, directed and paid for the ads themselves.

These guys know what they are doing. I have visions of them pacing the Dallas call center at this moment, correcting the miscues of call center agents and grabbing the headsets themselves, taking customers' calls.

As you may recall, getaroom.com lists published rates on its website, but consumers can register and phone the call center for unpublished discounts, said to "typically" be 10 percent to 25 percent, but tapping out at 50 percent.

Not that there are a bunch of novices in the call center and filling out hotel sales teams.

The Dallas Business Journal reported that getaroom.com hired many of its 30 full-time and 20 part-time employees from the ranks of hotels.com, Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.

You can imagine the call going out to former employees of the Diener-Litman-run hotels.com, which IAC finished acquiring in June 2003 and Expedia now owns, saying, "we're back."

The two had taken a five-year sabbatical from the travel industry because of a noncompete agreement with hotels.com.

The Dallas Business Journal said getaroom.com projects $45 million in revenue for the first year.

Some other things that getaroom.com has going for it include: an 800 number with the word "hotels" (800-hotels-8) in it, and an understanding of social media.

There's a bit of irony in a company that is pushing consumers to book over the telephone, instead of online for the best discounts, appears very adept at playing on the social media airwaves.

Here's getaroom.com's Facebook page.

Here's Diener gabbing on Twitvid.io.

When you register for getaroom.com, there are links at the bottom of the page to getaroom.com on Facebook and Twitter.

And, in another interesting twist, Travel Dividends believes that the commissions getaroom.com pays through its travel affiliate program are "rather rich," inferring that getaroom.com could make some headway against more modest programs offered by Expedia, Hotwire, Travelocity, Priceline and Orbitz.

Diener tells me that in addition to the company's first advertising campaign, "much more is coming."

getaroom.com just starting offering inventory from Barcelona hotels and plans on introducing other cities in Europe later in August, Diener says.

Launching a $10 million advertising campaign for a start-up is a pretty good start, especially when you realize that the duo made a few pennies from selling hotels.com and have deep pockets.

William Tell Overture or not, I think you will be hearing the name getaroom.com a lot in the future.

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Related Posts

Getaroom.com's Phone Rates and Manner Fall Flat

Critics to Founders of hotels.com and getaroom: TakeAHike

Update: Hotels.com Founders Introduce 'Reverse Opaque Rates' and Point to hotels.com Shortcomings

Getaroom.com's Phone Rates and Manner Fall Flat

I briefly and unscientifically tested the getaroom.com call center experience and wasn't impressed with its unpublished rates over the phone and its customer-service style.

Hotwire offered much steeper discounts for properties with the same star ratings and city areas in two instances, while getaroom.com's phone rate bested Hotwire's opaque rate by a few bucks in a third test.

That being said, I can see how getaroom.com's value proposition would be attractive to some consumers.

As you may recall, getaroom.com is the brainchild of hotels.com founders Bob Diener and David Litman and, as I reported, their business model has raised eyebrows.

getaroom.com offers published rates on its website and then, for certain properties, advises consumers to "call for lower unpublished rates." Alas, it is a means for properties to off-load distressed inventory without publicizing their discounts and diluting their brands.

However, the website pitch to phone for lower rates certainly is a tip-off that the brands have a penchant for discounting.

So, I tested the getaroom.com value proposition on three hotels: the 3-star Hotel Rex in the Union Square West section of San Francisco; Swisshotel in the Magnificent Mile area of Chicago; and the Regal Sun in the Lake Buena Vista-downtown area of Orlando.

I compared:

-- getaroom.com's published website rates;

-- getaroom.com's unpublished phone rates;

-- hotels.com's published rates;

-- and Hotwire's unpublished rates.

For the Hotel Rex in San Francisco, getaroom.com's website published rate for an Aug. 4-6 stay was $160.50 per night, the same as the hotels.com published rate. getaroom.com's unpublished rate over the phone was $146.40, but Hotwire offered an unpublished rate of $113.00 from one of its unidentified hotel partners in the same section of the city.

Incidentally, while getaroom.com listed the Hotel Rex as a 3-star property, hotels.com, Expedia.com and Priceline.com showed it as a 3.5-star property, so I went with the 3.5-star rating for Hotel Rex to come up with the $113.00 Hotwire rate. Hotwire's 3-star rate was even lower, $79 per night.

But, perhaps this getaroom.com-Hotwire face-off is a tad unfair because it is a bit of an apples to grapefruits comparison.

Here's the difference: I phoned the getaroom.com call center and the agent, Todd, went into a spiel about how getaroom has it all over Hotwire because with Hotwire you don’t know the identity of the hotel before you book.

So, with Hotwire the consumer must place some trust in the company that its hotel ratings are accurate and that you won’t end up in a fleabag property.

Regarding the face-off, I was measuring the getaroom.com unpublished rate for one property versus Hotwire's entire roster of properties with the same star rating in the same section of the city. Obviously, Hotwire would have an advantage of scale.

Hotwire gives you the price up-front, and the system is a bit different with competitor Priceline.com, where you enter a bid and wait to see if your offer is accepted. And, with both Hotwire and Priceline you select the star rating and city area, but learn the hotel's identity only after booking.

I’ve often taken advantage of great unpublished rates on Priceline and Hotwire and feel comfortable with booking on both websites.

But, I believe there is a large subset of consumers who would feel much more comfortable getting a sometimes-smaller discount with getaroom.com over the phone than gambling that Priceline or Hotwire will put them in a suitable room.

Although Priceline and Hotwire usually offer hotels from household-name brands, at least with getaroom.com there is no mystery about which hotel consumers will end up in.

And, I also think that some consumers may be unaware that the unpublished rate they can get over the phone from getaroom.com may be substantially higher than if they booked at Priceline or Hotwire.

I continued my rate-testing for the 4-star Swisshotel in the Magnificent Mile section of Chicago. getaroom.com's published website rate for an Aug. 4-6 stay was $206.10 per night, and the hotels.com published rate was $229. getaroom.com's unpublished rate over the phone was $150.81, but Hotwire offered an unpublished rate for a 4-star property in the Magnificent Mile area of Chicago for $92.00, or about 38.7 percent cheaper than getaroom.com's unpublished rate.

In contrast, getaroom.com's unpublished phone rate of $57.72 per night at the 3.5 star Regal Sun in the Lake Buena Vista-downtown section of Orlando was cheaper than Hotwire's $62 rate for a 3.5-star property in that area on the same dates, Aug. 4-6. hotels.com and getaroom.com's website both displayed the same published rate, $66.60 per night.

So, score two big wins for Hotwire, and one narrow victory for getaroom.com.

I'd also like to make a couple of points about my experience in phoning the getaroom.com call center, which I did twice today. I didn't identify myself as a journalist, and passed myself off as an ordinary consumer looking to book a room.

Hey, I'm sleuthing for you, but I digress.

The first agent I spoke with, Todd, was congenial, but a bit pushy.

And, I understand why.

After all, call center distribution costs are higher for getaroom.com than the online channel, especially if the consumer attempts to engage the call center agent in conversation or wants to do some comparison shopping.

I had informed Todd that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay in San Franscisco or take a quick getaway to Orlando instead. So, after quoting me the unpublished rate for Hotel Rex in San Francisco, I said I wanted to find out the unpublished rate for a hotel in Orlando.

"OK, which hotel quickly?" he replied.

So, I felt a bit pressured and certain that the agent, anxious to make a booking and move on to the next customer, wasn’t about to go out of his way to satisfy my deal-hunting desires.

getaroom.com's call center is not a place for comparison-shopping, but a venue for wham-bam-thank-you-mam bookings.

Todd warned me, as did a second agent, Tammy, who likewise had a pleasant manner when I called again later to inquire about Swisshotel in Chicago, that I'd better book now because the rates might not be available if I phoned back in a couple of hours.

Thus, a little more pressure, and not a leisurely shopping experience.

So, I think getaroom.com, with its website and call center propositions, might be an effective way for some properties, particularly smaller ones, to put some heads in beds during slack periods.

But, I think many consumers looking for real "deals" will probably stay online rather than phone and find greener pastures and more substantial discounts elsewhere.

Critics to Founders of hotels.com and getaroom: TakeAHike

A raging debate has broken out on this blog about the launch of getaroom.com, the brainchild of hotels.com founders Bob Diener and David Litman.

getaroom.com has a back-to-the future approach to travel distribution. Consumers see published rates and some rotating specials on the website, but then have to phone a call center to get steep discounts.

Hotels thus get to distribute their rooms and put heads in beds without brand dilution, and consumers get these semi-opaque deals, but know the identity of the property and its location before they book. For more more background, see my interview with Diener here.

A chorus of getaroom critics on this blog chimed in that Diener and Litman, who helped put hotel discounting on the map before the days of rate parity and best-rate guarantees, again are taking hotels down a slippery slope to the bottom of the fiscal heap.

"Sorry, I am struggling to understand where the innovation is here," said one anonymous observer. "Allowing a 4-star hotel to compete on PRICE with a 3-star hotel, is this what you call innovation? This is definitely not benefiting the industry. Hotels have fought for years to get to Rate Parity, Brand Protection, and to be able to sell direct on their own website. All I see in this new 'innovative' business is someone trying to make money quickly, but while doing that they are bringing the industry to the dark ages."

And, another getaroom.com basher wrote: "What isn't noted is what getaroom.com is taking as its cut. Hotels.com took 25%, money up front, and payment in the month following the stay. If this is their model for their new enterprise, it will only include the most desperate hotels during the worst periods of time. No one wants to be in that race to the bottom and get raped along the way."

However, a helluva lot of hotels obviously disagree as they vote with their feet. Look at all the properties that feed Hotwire and Priceline.

And plenty of properties see the value in getaroom.com. For example, Boston properties dabbling with getaroom.com include: the Colonnade Hotel, the Lenox Hotel, Wyndham Boston Chelsea, Copley Square Hotel and many more. Pick a city, you'll find plenty more.

If they weren't getting some distribution love from getaroom.com, they wouldn't be there.

What others see as another fatal flaw for getaroom.com is that consumers, finally accustomed to metasearch, online travel agencies and various trip-planning websites, will be very reluctant to dial for savings.

"In the age of the Internet why would people pick the phone to make hotel reservations?," another anonymous critic writes, taking up the theme. "I don't understand. People have moved away from offline a long time ago, and tomorrow's bookers are today's kids who do not even use email. They communicate on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc..."

getaroom.com certainly will not be the be-all and end-all for a lot of consumers, but why wouldn't a segment of savvy consumers, in this era when online-travel booking is so complex, phone a call center for a deal, especially when they know the name of the property and the location in advance?

Mary Song, the president and CEO of Propel Media, writes: "I think it's a brilliant idea given that hotels don't want everyone to know how low they are discounting, hence the success of Priceline and Hotwire. I agree with Dennis and would add that the subset of people who pick up the phone to make the final booking is quite large, but also that the site needs to make it more obvious that the best price to be had is actually over the phone and not online."

One anonymous defender of getaroom.com believes advocates of online-booking only aren't taking a broad enough view. "In my mind, the appeal of the getaroom.com model is the fact that it is the equivalent of saying 'Let me talk to your manager.' A website is not a decision maker and doesn't offer you a different price from Jo-Shmo next door because you pulled some strings or talked to the right person. This model subconsciously offers customers that value of a 'negotiated, rare rate' because of the strings they pulled, and frankly I think the value a consumer sees in that is currently being underestimated."

The anonymous comment-writer adds: "I think this model will be interesting to watch... Let's see what these 'kiddos' can do. If nothing else, it will be entertaining."

These kiddos, Diener and Litman, made a few pennies selling hotels.com -- now in the Expedia fold -- and own getaroom.com outright, with no VC funding. With deep pockets, Diener said they have "several million dollars" for marketing.

We're obviously comparing a few apples with acres of bananas here, but look at the strides Bing is making with, albeit a cool $80 million or so, as it seeks to blunt consumers' seemingly-automatic impulse to surf to Google.com to search.

Might not some consumers learn to halt their browsing for a bit, and dial that getaroom.com call center in Dallas?

Sounding like someone with inside knowledge, another person who commented on this blog wrote: "Getaroom.com is investing millions of dollars in promoting the site and the new way to book. By being on the site, it is massive free publicity for the hotel. The hotel controls the inventory. When a hotel needs more business they simply add inventory to the unpublished program, which they can take out anytime. Getaroom.com is being promoted now on many online sites, satellite radio, major newspapers and will soon begin a large television campaign. This all means free exposure for those hotels that participate."

The pushback to getaroom.com has been fairly heavy. Let's hope that critics aren't adverse to a company trying something new -- or should we say, something old?

As Mike Redbord tweeted to me, seemingly tongue in cheek: "Haters haters everywhere, give innovation a chance."

Update: Hotels.com Founders Introduce 'Reverse Opaque Rates' and Point to hotels.com Shortcomings

I wrote a post the other day about how Bob Diener and Dave Litman, the founders of HRN (a.k.a. hotels.com), have launched getaroom.com, and indeed they intend to shake things up.

Diener, who owns getaroom.com 50-50 with Litman, described the site's introduction of "reverse opaque rates" for hotel sales.

getaroom focuses on top destinations so if you enter your travel dates and click on Orlando, for instance, you'll see the Sheraton Vistana Resort at a published rate of $125.38 per night.

However, the reverse opaque model comes into play when you register on the website and phone getaroom's call center, staffed by a third-party company, in Dallas.

Diener said that over the phone you'll be able get an unpublished rate for that hotel and others for 10 percent to 50 percent less than the online published rate.

"Our goal is to bring a lot of vitality back and make booking hotels exciting again," Diener said.

The opaque-over-the-phone channel enables hoteliers to market their inventory at rates that they would rather not disclose online, enabling a four-star hotel, for instance, to compete against a three-star property if it so chooses, Diener said.

And, consumers get the advantage of finding a great deal and knowing up-front which hotel they are booking, unlike with Priceline, where you bid on a particular star category in a certain section of a city but learn the hotel's identity only after booking it.

Diener points out that most companies are trying to push consumers online, whereas getaroom.com is incenting consumers to dial for the best deals and values.

Diener and Litman obviously believe in doing things differently and are employing a strategy similar to one they pushed with HRN back in the day.

This is how one hotel consultant described getaroom.com's strategy.

"The strategy is EXACTLY the same strategy they used to launch HRN way back in the early 1990s," the hotel consultant said. "They focused on a few specific high-demand cities, got a handle on the revenue management/yield opportunities and managed the hell out of the pricing to optimize sales and margin."

"They wound up with a low-tech setup that had better demand/price point info than the hotel chains and leveraged it," the consultant added. "Also, speed is king to Litman -- note the results' screen populates within a second."

Diener did not have much to quibble with when I read him that analysis. He said getaroom.com is focusing on key destinations and offers a limited number of hotels with the best values in each of these markets, and "yes, speed is key," he said.

Commenting on the position of hotels.com under Expedia Inc. today, Deiner said hotels.com is a major player "and still has a great brand name, adding that he and Litman were "much more focused on value" when they ran the show.

hotels.com wants to be "everything to everybody," Diener said. "They have lots of hotels even if some are of low value. Their philosophy is to put on everything everywhere."

Diener said he and Litman decided to jump back into the fray after their five-year noncompete agreements expired because "we love the industry, it's in our DNA."

He said the duo saw a great opportunity because "the economy fell off a cliff last September" and the lodging industry needed a new channel to market its inventory.

"The industry really hasn't moved [in the last five years]," Diener said. "It really has stayed the same."

It is fitting then that getaroom.com has "several million dollars" for marketing and is launching spots on satellite radio and soon it will unveil TV ads, too, all to the tune of the William Tell Overture. getaroom, getaroom, getaroom.com.....

As you may recall, the William Tell Overture was also used as the theme music for the classic Lone Ranger television show.

However, there are no Lone Rangers in this story. Diener and Litman are back at it together -- and they may be driving their new model at a very ambitious pace.