Booking.com changes policy terms following controversy
Booking.com has confirmed it will “abandon its price, availability and booking conditions parity provisions with respect to other OTAs” following recent decisions by the National Competition Authorities (NCA) in France, Italy and Sweden.
The announcement has come amid controversy in the OTA-sphere: TripAdvisor recently accused Google of partaking in “anti-competitive behaviour” and Europe is investigating the matter further.
NCA decided to accept amendments booking.com offered to make to its parity commitments that would enable properties to offer different pricing and booking policies (free cancellation, free wifi, etc.) on other OTAs.
CEO of booking.com Darren Huston said: “We believe today’s decisions represent a continued, coordinated effort to promote competition in a way that supports innovation and encourages companies like our to continue to invest in the capacity and technical solutions that ultimately result in more customers for our partners and more tourism across Europe and abroad.”
Although this change will seemingly benefit other OTAs, booking.com will still retain the power to ensure hotels offer the same rates directly on their own site as they do on booking.com.
“Our business and teams are driven by one goal, which is to deliver an amazing, unrivalled experience to our global customers who use us to find and book accommodations in a simple, convenient and trustworthy way, both here in Europe and around the world.”
accomnews has reached out to booking.com to see if these changes will extend beyond Europe and will inform you with any updates.
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