Hotel technology usually comes at a cost - but OneTwoTrip has developed a slightly Utopian attitude to it all and created what it says is a "Google Analytics for rates".
Released this week to coincide with the ITB exhibition in Berlin, Germany, X-ray by OneTwoTrip gives hotels the ability to compare rates from various outlets (intermediaries, other suppliers) in a given location for competitive analysis and strategy.
The system works in the same way as many of the other services provided by travel technology companies into the hospitality sector - except the company has decided to make it free.
The Russian online travel agency bought the hotel pricing and data engine DealAngel last summer, but rather than completely absorb the service and associated technology for its own use, hotels will be able to use the X-ray system for their own benefit and competitor intelligence.
X-ray is born out of the iNNtelligenz platform created by some of DealAngel's founders in 2010 which was included in the deal last year.
OneTwoTrip's vice president of innovation (and DealAngel's CEO prior to the acquisition), Roman Peskin, says the company has decided to unleash the iNNtelligenz platform under the X-ray label to hotels because they essentially consider it useful for hotels and their rate strategy with online travel agencies, "so why not make it free".
Peskin argues that making its competitive analytics tool freely available to hotels could be likened to when Google acquired Urchin in 2005 and created Google Analytics, one of the most widely used web traffic tools on the planet.
"This is no gimmick. We wanted to give something to hotels which they find an important part of their daily lives - long before we even talk to them as an online travel agency like OneTwoTrip and ask for rates or inventory."
The service will remain free for any hotel in a market in which OneTwoTrip operates (as the iNNtelligenz system will be analysing the market anyway).