Booking.com continue to dominate and bully the market

Originally designed to increase a hotel’s visibility within Booking.com, the company has started to make the discounted rates available on Google Hotel Ads.

Up until now, Booking.com’s Genius “damage” was limited. That favourable treatment was limited to discriminating users inside the Booking.com ranking.

But if a metasearch engine publishes the discount comparing it directly with the full rate from other channels, this discrimination extends to all your other clients from other present channels: the most valuable ones and the least valuable ones, whether they are frequent travellers or not. You will be openly proclaiming that you treat “select” clients better, but only those from Booking.com, even better than the “select” clients from your own website.

The answer for your hotel is quite clear: it makes no sense. Not only does it not generate new clients but it also diverts existing ones from another channel -including your website- to Booking.com, with a subsequent increase in costs -plus commission, especially if it was a direct sale- and a guaranteed decrease in income, since the sale is coming in via the Genius rate.

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