Booking Holdings Takes Solitary Path in Online Travel Debate Over Offering Financial Relief to Partners
Photo Credit: Pictured is a Spring Airlines A320 bedecked as Booking.com as seen on July 7, 2018. Booking Holdings doesn't have a financial relief program for travel partners growing out of the coronavirus crisis. Flickr.com / Kwok Ho Eddie Wong
Skift Take
Booking Holdings may be calculating that partner memories aren't exceedingly long. On the other hand, with additional layoffs a possibility at flagship brand Booking.com, the parent company has its own problems to deal with.
While Airbnb is issuing $17 million in grants to some super hosts, and Google, Expedia Group, Trip.com Group and Tripadvisor are offering various forms of advertising or marketing credits, loans or financial relief to partners, Booking Holdings is a holdout and isn't mounting a financial recovery effort.
Booking Holdings, which includes brands such as Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda, has chosen to forego taking the financial relief route and instead is working on recovery toolkits for partners, sharing data to entice bookings, and is rolling out consumer incentives to generate demand, according to spokeswoman Leslie Cafferty.
Cafferty argued that some of these measures can have a longer-term impact than offering partners a one-time payment.
Some of these travel industry relief efforts — particularly Airbnb and Google's programs — have found themselves in the line of fire.
Airbnb ironically is the only hospitality-specific program that Skift found that's actually hand
