Six Continents Appoints New VP To Head Up Global Distribution

ATLANTA— As more distribution channels pop up and consumers continue to look online for hot travel deals, hotel companies are finding a new need for executives to oversee their dispersal of guestrooms, which is why Six Continents Hotels recently appointed Jim Young as its new vp/global distribution. Taking over for Eric Pearson, who was promoted to vp/e-commerce for Six Continents, Young is now responsible for the company’s allocation of guestrooms via travel agents, third-party websites, and the four GDSs. Young reports directly to Tom Seddon, svp of strategic services/Americas at Six Continents. “My focus is on the customers that haven’t made their brand choice,” said Young. “I need to make sure we display ourselves in a manner, and with a price, so that consumers will chose one of our brands and book a room.” Six Continents has taken significant steps to built up its on-line presence recently, and currently has rooms spread out through various websites, including: Hotwire, Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Trip.com, HRN, and Orbitz. “There is a ton of opportunities relative to Internet distributors to go after non-brand sensitive customers,” he stated, warning that hotels still need to be careful about the on-line vendors they chose because “it’s a changing market place and there’s still a lot of consolidation in that arena.” In his new role, Young will seek out relationships with third-party websites that demonstrate they “can bring value to our hotels,” then work to craft a corporate agreement with the distributor. Because many of Six Continents properties are franchised, Young also needs to work with owners and franchisees to help them better understand the benefits of electronic distribution. “They all look to us for advice on how to distribute,” he said. In order for franchisees to see significant revenues from on-line vendors, Young suggests: they make sure they have as much information as possible on all websites, including pictures, amenities, local information, and restaurant information; franchisees also need to ensure their websites comply with brand standards, like having links back to www.6c.com and the company’s loyalty program website; in addition, the careful and timely distribution of rates is also important in order to receive consistent online reservations. Meanwhile, Young will also be working to improve the company’s distribution with travel agents. “There are always going to be travel agents. It’s a myth that they’re going away. That’s not true,” he stated. In fact, Young’s first order of business is to re-launch Six Continents’ electronic commission services group. Currently, the company reimburses hotels for any travel agent commissions through the Travel Agent Commission program, but Young is working to create an improved system for processing these fees. Prior to joining Six Continents, Young worked as the managing director/distribution planning for Continental Airlines, in charge of all of the company’s distribution policies and strategies. Before that he served as manager of strategic planning at Canadian Airlines.