Booking.com change tactics - again!
Booking.com change tactics - again!
The threat continues…
Just when you through your relationship (and I use that wordtentatively as no relationship should be one-sided) with Booking.com couldn’tget any worse, well it has… This morning Booking.com announced that they willbe offering your Genius Rates (which as you know, you have very little controlof anyway) to all of their other subsidiaries. These include their parent company, Priceline; Kayak and Agoda.
Hotels will automatically be opted into this programme and if hotels ignore, Booking.com will take this as ‘silent consent’ that you agree to participate. So, what does this actually mean for you? In my opinion, this means handing over yet more control to Booking.com and with, let’s face it, yet another hugely detrimental effect on your rate strategy.
I am not a fan of Genius in any shape or form although I doappreciate that some hotels feel they need it to stimulate demand in a verysuppressed market. However, thoseinstances should be few and far between and my concern is that hotels feelrail-roaded into making these decisions when really as a market we should besaying no!
In my humble opinion, hotels should really consider whatthis means to their business overall before allowing this to happen. Isn’t it time to just say no? Isn’t it time that as an industry we came togetherand pushed back, even a little? Ithappens in other markets, why not yours?
If you do decide to opt out (and just in case you are underany illusion with this blog so far, that would absolutely be myrecommendation), then login to your Booking.com extranet; click on: Analytics –Genius Report – Manage your audience. Scrollto the bottom of the page and click on – You’re gaining access to a wideraudience – then opt out.
If you add this latest announcement to other programmes recently announced by Booking.com - as an example their ‘mobile-only preferred rates’ - and they really are cutting away at everything we as an industry do. For those of you who aren’t aware of this programme (which you probably have already been opted-in to), Booking.com will take higher commission on all bookings made on mobile as they are attempting to position themselves as the booking engine of choice via mobile. Rates will be discounted for mobile bookers and you end up paying for it!
We also know that last week Google announced that they will be pushing all travel related sites further down the rankings in a bid to make their Google Travel solution more prevalent for searchers. In an attempt to combat this lack of Google placement, Booking.com is now changing tactics. Instead of using your commission to fund their own PPC campaign against your brand name, they are now using that lovely commission that you pay them to incentivise travellers. As an example; if you book a hotel in London, you might get free entrance to Madame Tussauds or The Tower of London. The attempt here is to make travellers believe that they are the only solution in the market that put the booker first, which of course we know is not true… They desperately want loyalty from travellers and we are paying the price for this.
Yet again we find the scales of fairness tipped and not inour favour…
There is of course the argument that if the market is movingtoward seeing Booking.com as their preferred booking solution and the answer toall of our customers prayers, then maybe we have to take this buying shift andjust deal with it.
However, I feel physically awkward with the tactics used byBooking.com to ‘bully’ hotels into these programmes. The bottom line is that they are a commercialentity. They care not one little bitabout our customers. We provide the serviceand the experience. We are the onesworking at very tight margins. They arethe ones making 3 or 4 times (or more) what we make on a hotel room whilst we basicallydo all the work of servicing our wonderful guests.
Yes, they market our hotel 24 hours per day in places we could never reach but come on guys, play fair here! These tactics are down-right despicable, and I really look forward to the day when we as an industry feel that we should do something about it. Is today that day???
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