Can travel brands reclaim customer control while building marketplace ecosystems without relying on third-party platforms?
The existing problem
For years, airlines, hotels, and car rental companies have faced a frustrating dilemma. They want to offer complete travel solutions to their customers, but they simply can’t do it efficiently with their current infrastructure.
The typical response? Integrate third-party packages and sell them as complementary business through direct channels. Seems logical… until you realize they’ve lost complete control over what they’re selling. No personalization based on customer profiles. No real visibility into margins. And worse: they’re cannibalizing their own revenue while subsidizing intermediaries.
This fragmentation isn’t just inefficient. It’s expensive. OTA commissions can reach 25% of booking value. Meanwhile, customers experience disjointed journeys with multiple reference numbers, separate confirmations, and zero integration between services.
The question is whether travel providers can reverse this trend and build their own marketplace models without depending on third parties to assemble the puzzle.
The transformation underway
The shift from linear ecommerce to integrated marketplaces represents a monumental transformation for the travel industry. Traditional models (where you sell one product through a sequential flow) are becoming obsolete. The future belongs to marketplaces where multiple complementary services integrate seamlessly into a single platform.
IATA developed One Order precisely to eliminate fragmentation and create a single customer record consolidating flights, ancillaries, hotels, ground transportation, and any other travel service. The concept is elegantly simple: one reference replaces the multiple PNRs, e-tickets, and EMDs that exist today.
Let’s see if the industry will move gradually into this model during the next years, is crucial to make it.
The future of travel industry e-commerce
Airlines, hotels, and car rentals need to evolve from linear sellers into marketplace operators. Think about Amazon: it started selling books (linear model), but today 80% of its products come from third-party sellers on its marketplace. This hybrid model captures the best of both worlds: control over proprietary products plus catalogue breadth through third parties.
For travel, this means an airline doesn’t just sell flights. It operates a platform where customers can add hotels, travel insurance, transfers, local experiences… all in a single booking flow. Complex operations like disruptions will easily be managed by the company and the NPS will better.
The user experience must be as fluid as adding products to an Amazon cart. No more linear funnels where you first book the flight, then search for a hotel on another site, and finally contract transportation on a third platform. The new model presents everything simultaneously with personalized recommendations based on trip context.
As everyone operates under similar marketplace models, differentiation will shrink dramatically. Customer acquisition costs will continue rising, and brands will compete not only with traditional OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia but also with each other.
Here’s where the decisive factor enters: first-party data and loyalty. Companies that directly control customer relationships and accumulate proprietary data will have an insurmountable competitive advantage. First-party data enables true personalization, precise targeting, and building lookalike audiences for new customers without depending on third parties.
Hotels prioritizing their direct channel are seeing concrete results. In 2024, average direct bookings on hotel websites reached $519 versus $320 on OTAs — 62% more revenue per booking. In the UK, direct bookings generated £403 per booking, exceeding OTAs by 60%.
The key lies in leveraging complete control over the booking flow to upsell premium rooms, additional services, and complementary experiences. Something simply not possible when depending on third-party channels.
Conclusion
The transformation from linear ecommerce toward integrated marketplaces isn’t a future trend, it’s happening right now. Companies that implement robust marketplace platforms and capitalize on first-party data through effective loyalty programs will dominate the next decade of travel.
The question isn’t whether you should transform, but when. The longer you wait, the more ground you lose to competitors already executing this vision.
Does your company face these same challenges of fragmentation, loss of control in direct channels, or difficulty competing with OTAs? At Consumer Services Hub, we work with airlines, hotels, and travel companies to design and implement data-driven strategies that optimize your direct channel, improve conversion rates, and recover control of your customer relationship. Don’t settle for being a commodity on third-party platforms. Build your own marketplace and dominate your market.
Let’s talk today about how we can help you make this strategic leap: https://consumerserviceshub.com/contact-us/
