hospitalitytoday.com | 15 OTAs: competitive prices


and continued growth By Jason Grist, Area Manager UK Hotels, Booking.com


What do a family-run hotel in the highlands of Scotland and a cottage in the countryside in Kent have in common? They both successfully attract customers from all over the world with hardly any marketing budget. Online booking channels have become so well established as a convenient part of the modern consumer’s travel experience, that we sometimes forget just how much they contribute to the travel industry as a whole by providing an incredibly cost- effective method for hoteliers to reach and engage with new customers around the globe. These are customers that would never find that family-run, country B&B with the same ease, speed and confidence as they do with the support of an online booking platform.


Tens of thousands of accommodation owners in the UK list their properties with Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), and a large majority of these properties are small, independent hotels and B&Bs. The wide international exposure OTAs like Booking.com can provide makes them a powerful additional marketing channel for UK accommodation owners. In fact, in a 2014 GfK study, 83% of hoteliers indicated that their occupancy level had increased because of their listings with online booking platforms.


Jason Grist, Area Manager UK Hotels, Booking.com


Regulators keep an eye out


Hotel associations in the UK and across Europe have been actively voicing their concerns about OTAs for years. In response, various national competition authorities have conducted long and thorough investigations into the effect that OTAs have on competition levels in their markets.


As a result, on 21 April 2015, the French, Italian and Swedish competition authorities decided to accept commitments from Booking.com to narrow the scope of its previous ‘most favoured nation’ and parity clauses. In effect, these new commitments enable Booking.com’s accommodation partners to offer lower prices, as well as different conditions and availability to competing OTAs and across their offline channels, while still maintaining parity on their own websites. Leading authorities have recognized the competitive benefits of these commitments. Even the UK Competition & Market Authority recently closed its investigation following these new developments. All of this paves the way for a new European-wide standard to keep online competition healthy, driving value for both consumers and accommodations.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34