Hotel Loyalty Rates Finally Gave Room Key Site an Advantage
Photo Credit: RoomKey is a comparison-shopping service for hotels offered by big chains, mostly in the U.S., where all bookings are made directly with the hotel. The offers usually include loyalty member rates and perks like free Wi-Fi and late check-out. Room Key
Skift Take
Room Key is a bit like the train in the children's story, "The Little Engine That Could," which kept saying "I think I can, I think I can." While Room Key may never become the next Kayak, it may help hotel chains gain more direct bookings.
Room Key, a hotel search site founded by major chains five years ago, said it has unlocked revenue growth and profitability.
Room Key's 2017 transaction volume is up about 50 percent compared with the prior year, a spokesperson estimated, and the business has been profitable since mid-2015. The company did not provide absolute numbers.
The private Dallas-based company is still small, though, when considered against the lofty ambitions expressed when it was founded.
In 2012 hotel chains Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Marriott, and Wyndham created Room Key, touting its promise to be an alternative intermediary channel that would take share from the online travel agencies.
Taking share never happened.
Yet CEO Steve Sickel said in an interview that Room Key had begun to make small but useful gains for participating hotels.
"Room Key can make a material impact without ever having to be a serious challenger to Expedia," Sickel said. "We're savin
