On May 13, 2024, the European Commission (EC) designated Booking as a “gatekeeper” (see my LinkedIn post), similar to how it previously branded Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, TikTok, etc. “Holidaymakers will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities,” declared Margrethe Vestager, EC’s Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy. One of the results of this designation by EC is that Booking can no longer include rate parity clauses in its agreements with hotels. In other words, hoteliers can now publish promotions and lower rates on their websites than what they provide the OTAs with.
What’s your take? Will European Hotels benefit from this decision?
I believe this is a positive step towards fair competition and gives hotels the freedom to create better pricing strategies overall. Savvy hoteliers will definitely drive stronger performance thanks to this, for the others this won’t change much 🙂
Now, let’s not…