The Disappointing Life of Hotel Industry Booking Site Room Key
Skift Take
You would think hoteliers would have learned a few things from their foray with Travelweb in the early 2000s but, as Room Key shows, they obviously did not.
If you ever scroll all the way down to the bottom of the home pages for Choice Hotels, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Marriott, or Wyndham, there's a slight chance you may notice a link to something called Room Key.
Or, if you happen to be looking for a room on any of those sites, but decide you're not ready to hit the "book" button and leave the site, there's a chance a new screen will pop under, directing you to RoomKey.com.
Still not sure what Room Key is? You're probably not alone in that regard, and that's one of the biggest problems with its business: a major lack of brand awareness.
Room Key, launched in January 2012, is the brainchild of six major hotel chains — Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, and Wyndham. When it debuted, its inaugural press release described Room Key as "an innovative new online hotel search engine that will provide the simplicity, transparency and breadth of choice consumers expect from a search engine, while deliveri
