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A labour of love: why we created the Direct Booking Summit

The Direct Booking Summit is the world's biggest conference dedicated to direct bookings. Find out why we love it so much.

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A labour of love: why we created the Direct Booking Summit

"The best conference I've ever been to."

That's what Steven Howe, Digital Manager at Apex Hotels, had to say after last year's inaugural Direct Booking Summit in London. It's a quote we hold very close to our communal Triptease heart: the hospitality industry is not short of events to attend, so when we heard that one, we knew we'd created something truly special.

What it is

The Direct Booking Summit series is a pair of conferences - the first in New York, the second in Barcelona - completely dedicated to hotels and direct bookings.

DBS isn't about our Direct Booking Platform, or even about Triptease. It's about hoteliers joining forces as a movement. As an industry, we still haven't gone far enough to redress the balance between online travel agencies and hotel websites, and we still haven't spread the word far enough that a direct booking leads to a better stay. But those aren't the only topics that DBS addresses: the conversation has also moved on.

The world doesn't exist in binaries - and neither does the Direct Booking Movement. It's not as simple as good vs. bad, hotel vs. OTA. The Direct Booking Summit is a place to come together and discuss - sometimes debate - how the industry should move forward with its relationship to third parties. The online travel landscape never stops changing, and hotels need to be thinking about how they're going to adapt to the advent of voice search, the widespread adoption of metasearch advertising, and the phenomenal growth of Ctrip - to name but a few. Hoteliers don't have endless time on their hands. That's why DBS exists: to boil those topics down into key deliverables and takeaways, and connect hoteliers with the providers who can help them most.

Why we do it

Is it too corny to say it's because we care? Maybe. But maybe we'll say it anyway. We don't run the Summit for profit: we run it to provide the best event a hotelier will go to all year. We place a huge focus on case studies and real-life worked examples - we bring in hoteliers we admire to talk about what works for them, and what doesn't, when it comes to a direct booking strategy. There are workshops, breakout sessions, buckets of networking time, and a constant focus on coming together as friends. And a party. Did we mention the party?

No one knows how to have a good time like a hotelier. And what's a conference without a killer party to round it off? Come to DBS prepared not just for insightful discussion, but for a lot of dancing too.

Check out the full agenda

The complete agenda for each event can be found on the dedicated website - check out New York's here, and Barcelona's over here. If you've got more questions, you're more than welcome to get in touch anytime; our events manager Anastasia loves nothing more than a chat!

Ready to register? Great! You can go ahead and book right on this page, but hurry - prices rise at the end of August.

About The Author

Lily is Lead Product Marketing Manager at Triptease. When she's not investigating the industry or spreading the word that #DirectIsBest, she enjoys music, cycling, and obscure radio quiz shows.


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