Booking.com Wasn't Powerful Enough: It's Now Getting More Sway With Hotels
Skift Take
Given Booking.com's digital prowess, its new service for hotels is likely to be an attractive one for a segment of the hotel market. But isn't it ironic that Booking.com is poised to get more involved in hotels' digital operations just when European regulators are trying to limit its influence?
If hotels and European regulators are already concerned about Booking.com's clout with hotels, they'll now have to consider that Booking.com is likely to gain even more leverage with hotels because the company has launched a new hotel-website creation and booking-engine service.
Booking.com, which recently reached agreements with several European regulators that would enable hoteliers to offer lower rates to Booking.com's competitors for the first time in years, has unveiled a new division, BookingSuite, that creates websites for hotels and collects commissions from them when hotels sell rooms on their own websites when they use the BookingSuite Web Engine.
Booking.com states "WebDirect is for Booking.com partners who want a sophisticated Web presence" and they "only pay when a reservation is made through their booking engine and results in a stay by gue
