OTA’s were a stopgap solution when the non-tech hotel industry was being left behind during the early days of online distribution. Now, distribution has changed, and continues to change in rapid and meaningful ways. OTA’s aren’t as necessary anymore.

And here comes RoomKey… filling an empty space that the OTA’s have bungled. Here’s an article on Room Key, the hotel brand search engine. Upshot (summary via TNOOZ): Choice Hotels International, Hilton

“With the like button, with Tripadvisor, and different applications… they will find their way. You can’t just dismiss the powerhouses of today just because they don’t have the right applications. That would be like dismissing Google in the past because the algorithm was a little off. You have got to understand that these companies have the bandwidth, the smarts, and the money – and travel is one of the largest if not *THE* largest online opportunity, vertical, and once they have their sights set on it, they will figure it out.”

I imagine this is one of the first mash ups of a live-twittered conference? If not the first, one of the only ones because this was massively, overly, insanely, time-consuming. I do think what came of it was worthwhile, and I hope this sort of serves as a testament to all we spoke about and considered during Eye for Travel SM SF 2010.