Hospitality industry experts agree, offering a toll free number on a hotel or hotel brads website not only is likely to increase oval bookings, but provide an important customer service element.

Over the past decade the internet has grown to become one of the major sources of for hotels. It has also proven to be one of the lowest costs of distribution for them. Major hotel companies have marketed their Web site as the best place to book, offering incentives like frequent quest points and lowest price guarantees to entice consumers to book directly on their Web sites. As more and more of their individual leisure and unmanaged business travel booked via the web, they were able to scale back their call centers which reduced their cost per booking due to the higher cost of call center staffing.

Many travel companies made it difficult if not almost impossible to speak to a human, frustrating many consumers and resulting in the loss of bookings. There is a misconception that moving bookings to the Web lowers cost and ultimately saves both the hotel and customer time and money by elimination the costs involved with 800 numbers and call center staffing. In fact, while rates ...