As a reporter I am intrigued by this distinction, but as a consumer, my bride could care less. She knows what she wants, where, when and for what price. She owes nothing to a particular brand. Business travelers and tourists are hotels' bread and butter, but ideally, my future wife is the real catch for a brand; an educated consumer that would join their loyalty program, gush about them on Yelp, say things like, "I only stay at a brand X hotel" and then Facebook friend them. This kind of inter-connected customer is a boon of free press and peer recommendations for hotel brands. That loyalty is poached when customers associate travel accommodations with the "Hotwire" theme or William Shatner karate-chopping irony into submission.

However, hotels are slow to adjust. In the information age, it's hard to convince someone that one choice is always the best under every circumstance. We are not a Swiss Army Knife generation. We are a comparison shopper generation. But this is not entirely bad for hotels that do appeal to someone like my lady who knows the difference between over-priced rooms and well-priced rooms. Doing head-to-head comparisons work in some hotels favor. For example, she's not going to use Priceline to blindly pick a hotel that drops her in an airport-overnight with a twin bed and a disposable cup in a wrapper just because it's within two miles of her location. But she's also not going to pay to stay in a hipster dorm room hotel, either.

The problem for hoteliers is that in spite of myriad protestations about inventory control and brand recognition, there is still no way for consumers to do side-by-side price comparisons of hotel rooms without pulling up an OTA site and scrolling through. Even if they don't purchase from the OTAs, they are still relying on them. Brands reactions have been to segment themselves with their own internal sites, which is a move in the opposite direction of what customers want. Seeing things side-by-side can be a good thing. After all, even marriage is the result of comparative analysis.