Expedia's Hotel-Bidding Program Misleads Consumers Says Hotel Group
Skift Take
Advertising such as bidding programs can be a higher margin business than transactions for online travel agencies. It looks like Expedia, at least, wants to get involved in that bidding revenue that Google and metasearch players have generated for years.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association believes that Expedia's new hotel Accelerator program, which enables hotels to place bids to get higher placement in Expedia search results, is misleading and harmful to consumers.
Expedia Inc. CFO Mark Okerstrom discussed the program in a Skift interview February 10, and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talked about it during the company's earnings call and on CNBC the next day.
Earlier, in December at Expedia's Partners Conference, the company presented a demo about the Accelerator program, explaining that it is a new tool being rolled out that gives hoteliers another way to move their listings higher in Expedia's search results. Hotels can already advertise their way up the sort order through "Promotions," a spokesperson says.
“This program will severely jeopardize consumer choice in the hotel booking process," said Maryam Cope, AH&LA's vice president of government affairs. "Clearly this is a pay to play program that fixes results consumers see so they are none the wiser. Biased or misleading search results from these sites or via Web searches can be highly problematic, particularly on those booking websites that purport to be 'helping' consumers comparison-shop based off of less than objective information."
Algorithms Are Never Transparent
Online travel agencies have always been obtuse about how their sort order is determined and it likely varies from OTA to OTA. Factors include the amount of commission, allotments, rates, preferred relationships, property descriptions, photos and reviews, for example.
The American Hotel &
