Hotels aren't doing enough to keep their wholesale rates off of smaller retail travel sites. That is damaging to Expedia's effort to gather the best prices online.
There will be many struggling companies that will be watching this Trivago experiment to go really big in brand advertising. Is a second time the charm?
Apple doesn't let Best Buy discount iPhones, and hoteliers don't want online travel agencies like Agoda to undercut their rates. A win for the hotel industry would be a loss for travelers.
The European Commission found that banning certain rate parity provisions impacted competition minimally. Therefore, perhaps designating Booking.com a "gatekeeper," were it to happen, wouldn't be the end of online travel as we know it.
Well, looky here. It isn't just short-term rentals and digital nomads "reinventing travel." eDreams Odigeo claimed a piece of that boast as it projected turning travel's business model upside down and having more than seven million members in its Prime subscription program by mid-2025.
Many observers will be watching the trajectory of Tripadvisor Plus in 2022. In the video, Tripadvisor's Steve Kaufer details his thinking behind the strategy changes.
We said all along that major hotel chain buy-in would go a long way toward determining the trajectory of Tripadvisor Plus. Now it appears that big hotel brands may participate, but the subscription program is scaled back and much less compelling.
Behind the scenes, China's competition crackdown on internet platforms could eventually have a larger impact on Trip.com Group's partnerships, business practices, and mergers than is generally appreciated. Although a reversal is unlikely, even Trip.com's 2015 acquisition of Qunar has drawn scrutiny.
With the competition heating up among short-term rental platforms, price parity issues may increasingly come into play, as they once did in the hotel industry. But with short-term rentals, given the ever-shifting guest fee rates, the pricing rules will be difficult to enforce.
Getting your hotel tech demands right is never an easy process. Why should tech for hotel distribution be any different? Hoteliers end up working with many vendors to help grasp demand, set rates. and get rooms on the right channels. Here's some clarity to figure out that morass.