How Scottsdale Was Sold Out

I won't deny that in the past some of our hotels and resorts have fallen prey to what I refer to as the evil empire, the likes of Expedia, Hotwire, Hotels.com, Orbitz and other discounters that sell massive amounts of rooms but require suppliers to sell their souls in the bargain. You would have to work in this business to understand just how complicated these wholesalers are to work with but most hotels and resort management companies have all fallen into this trap at one time or another. Just ask a hotel about their typical Hotwire customer and watch their eyebrows twitch. (see the post: What is a Wholesaler)

But it wasn't just the big guns like Expedia or Hotwire that muddied the waters - just about anyone could negotiate "discounted rates" and form "special" relationships with Scottsdale hotels and resorts, put up a website, and poof!, they became a Scottsdale golf packager. Fortunately, the savvy ones out there (and I think Hilton pioneered this) have called a halt to the freewheeling days where their customers could find a better deal on Expedia than they could on the hotel or resort's own website! 

Many of the so-called mom and pop wholesalers never produced a single room night and for a variety of reasons became high maintenance. Who wants to keep jumping through hoops for nothing in return? Now the hotels are more selective with bringing in wholesalers and partners and they must prove their worth. The biggest problem of the past and may still be a concern is that while most meant well many of these company's were here today and gone tomorrow, leaving their clients holding the (empty) golf bag. They did not have the financial staying power to remain in business long enough to get noticed. Unfortunately for the legit golf packagers, a lot of these same "wholesalers" were able to scam free trips from harried hotel sales people under ever-increasing pressure to put "heads in beds", which then resulted in a tightening of the rules for site visits- and rightfully so.