The "Wotif Under $99" promotion will be active between 30th October to 8th November 2009. This promotion follows on from this year's "Wotif.com 5-Day Sale" in June and the "7-day Ridiculous Rates Sale" in August that promoted deals that were at least 50% off the rack rate.
Wotif.com used supporting radio advertising on major Australian radio stations for their last promotion, however there doesn't appear to be any budget allocated to MSM this time around.
Promotional support will be by Wotif newsletters sent to its vast database of clients, website buttons on the Wotif.com website, press releases and use of social media such as Twitter.
Like the Wotif 5-Day Sale promotion, Tourism New Zealand will be assisting with promotion and links on www.newzealand.com.
This is an interesting scenario with Tourism New Zealand on one hand elevating New Zealand accommodation that has been "Quality Assured" by Qualmark NZ Ltd and on the other hand assisting an Australian Online Travel Agent promote "unlicensed" accommodation at knock down prices. Does this worry us? Not at all. We just think there is a certain amusing irony.
Many motels that traditionally operate with a narrow band between their rack and sell rates found that they were unable to take part in Wotif's 50% reduction promotions. The latest sub-$99 promotion may be in response to this and could encourage more motels to participate.
We would have hoped that the accommodation industry was well past offering tariff below $100.00. It will be interesting to analyse the up-take from accommodation providers to gauge the desperation levels of the industry. A net rate of $77.88 after deducting wotif's agent fee and gst from a $99.00 tariff is not a viable proposition for any accommodation provider.
It could be argued that Wotif's successive promotions are assisting to normalise expectations of deep discounting in the accommodation industry, however the fault is with the accommodation provider that seems to be more than willing to participate.
Shouldn't we consider quality and adding value before sending tariff through the floor?
