Wholesaler & Bedbank connections
Wholesalers (or Bedbanks) are companies that conclude annual contracts with hotels where they buy hotel rooms in bulk. The wholesaler then resells these rooms to third parties such as travel agencies, airlines, or booking sites with which the hotel does not have a direct contract. A wholesaler only works business-to-business; this means that they will never sell rooms directly to guests.
All you need to know about Wholesalers
When a wholesaler enters into a contract with a hotel, it is agreed how many rooms the wholesaler will buy and at what Net Rate. Before the rise of the internet, these rooms were then sold to travel agencies. Nowadays, wholesalers resell the rooms mainly to OTAs or other wholesalers. The wholesaler makes money by increasing the room rate by a certain percentage.
Wholesalers are specialised buyers and sellers with many connections, and therefore have access to channels that hoteliers often cannot access directly. Another advantage is that you have certainty about your earnings; the hotel rooms have already been sold to the wholesaler. It is then up to the wholesaler to actually sell the purchased rooms. If you do not want to get too involved in the online distribution strategy of the hotel, it can be interesting to enter into a contract with these parties.
