The UK B&B Association has branded booking.com a ‘bully’ following a settlement this week between the booking site and French, Italian and Swedish authorities in co-ordination with the European Union that allows the site to avoid the prospect of open competition over hotel prices in Europe.
The agreement means hotel and B&B owners can be prevented by Booking.com from offering cheaper rates on their own websites, or face being ostracised from the site – something many will consider even more undesirable given that the site now accounts for 41% of Europe’s air and hotel bookings, according to an article published by FT.com this week.
Challenge to Booking.com
“The B&B Association challenges Booking.com to defend how it uses its dominant position in the market to bully small independent B&Bs and hotels, by preventing them offering their best prices on their own websites,” says David Weston, Chief Executive of the B&B Association. “We strongly believe that the Competition & Markets Authority should address this gross imbalance of power, returning some from this global giant back to the individual B&B and hotel owners.”
The settlement terms allow hotels to offer the same rates to other online travel agents and to guests who book over the phone but not through their own websites. This allows Booking.com to lay claim that they always offer the cheapest online rates available.
Wrong, anti-competitive, and against the interests of consumers
“The Bed & Breakfast Association believes that this new settlement, thrashed out behind closed doors in Europe, is wrong, anti-competitive, and against the interests of consumers,” continues Weston. “Booking.com should not be allowed to prevent B&Bs and hotels from offering their lowest prices on their own websites.
“Further, Booking.com, Expedia and other OTAs should not be allowed to “buy” top places on web searches by “bidding” on the names of individual hotels and B&Bs without their permission for pay-per-click search advertising on Google.”
The FT article quotes the head of a smaller online travel agent who calls the ruling “terrible” for the consumer, noting that when Booking.com penalises a hotel for offering a competitor a better rate they will be forced to ultimately side with Booking.com due to their market dominance.
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