Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition • Hacker News Board

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#51

Post by notahacker » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 12:23 PM UTC

jpalomaki wrote: post #38

rplnt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually surprised (some) online booking agencies actually vet the locations they sell. So there is significant cost to scouting and vetting the hotels, i.e. to protect the customer. They also offer some various guarantees which have to be factored into the commission. I'm fairly certain Google skips all of this, so I would say their profit is effectively (much) higher. What sucks about the former approach is t…

What I find interesting is that I've seen cases where you don't even find a matching price from the hotels own booking system. I understand they can't go lower than booking site due to contracts, but it would make sense to offer at least similar rates in order to attract direct bookings.

They'll pick up direct bookings from people who aren't interested in price comparisons and "special offer, only three rooms left, no refund" though. Same as few service providers choose to match their Groupon price on their own website.

They'll have done some sort of estimate that the revenue they lose from charging direct bookers lower prices is greater than the revenue they lose from people comparing their price with the OTA price, even if that estimation is on the back of an envelope.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#52

Post by hrktb » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 12:30 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #49

prostoalex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like almost every hotel chain nowadays pitches booking through their own Web site, often throwing some extra perks for direct bookings. They also try to rope the customers in with fairly generous loyalty programs, “unpublished” rates and credit card marketing tie-ins. So yeah, seems like OTAs were okay with this as long as it was IHG, Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Choice Hotels and Best Western doing this on their o…

I’ve tried to book directly through the hotel site. And when I’ve informed the reservation desk the rate is cheaper through an OTA they tell me to book using the OTA. That was a 20% commission they could have kept or given to me as a discount. I guess I don’t know how agreements work. Seems like OTAs are more flexible with pricing compared to the hotel staff.

I think the difference is in mainly in booking conditions.

For instance a lot of OTA will push non cancellable rooms for lower prices. The hotel probably doesn’t want to deal with these customer issues directly, while the guaranteed benefit is attractive.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#53

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 12:33 PM UTC

thesumofall wrote: post #16

This article is largely incomprehensible and seems strongly biased. Having said that, I don’t quite see how consumers are being hurt. The issue only seems to be with very targeted search queries such as “Hilton Houston” where Expedia, etc. ageeed voluntarily not to show ads and smaller ones are allegedly somehow blocked by Google. But: if one searches for such a specific term, a customer will almost always be harmed…

Try to use that rate guarantee. Most exclude “aggregators” and other deal sites.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#54

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 12:39 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #24

dragonwriter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a sour grapes article representing the grudges of online travel agencies (OTAs) against Google. Superficially, but more deeply it's part of the propaganda war the WSJs corporate parent has been carrying out against Google on all fronts for quite a long time, which is in part partisan/ideological, and in part business over similar issues in publishing.

I still don't get why we can't talk about banning "fake news" like wall street journal on hn. These are clearly hit pieces and as my parent mentioned, part of a coordinated effort to undermine Google. They did the same thing with YouTube. Everyone is worse off because of wsj.

It’s not news, it is an editiorial. Although I consider the modern WSJ editorial board to be pretty loathsome, it isn’t fake news.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#55

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 12:44 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #24

dragonwriter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a sour grapes article representing the grudges of online travel agencies (OTAs) against Google. Superficially, but more deeply it's part of the propaganda war the WSJs corporate parent has been carrying out against Google on all fronts for quite a long time, which is in part partisan/ideological, and in part business over similar issues in publishing.

I still don't get why we can't talk about banning "fake news" like wall street journal on hn. These are clearly hit pieces and as my parent mentioned, part of a coordinated effort to undermine Google. They did the same thing with YouTube. Everyone is worse off because of wsj.

Surely it's better to discuss these stories publicly and make errors / biases known than to just pretend they don't exist?

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#56

Post by 0cean » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

electic wrote: post #9

Question to anyone here who is familiar with this industry. Would one be able to save even more by just going to a wholesaler? I mean, with the right know how, can someone just buy from a wholesaler directly?

Wholesalers are not supposed sell below the hotel’s rates. If they do, they’re likely violating their contract with the hotel.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#57

Post by Carb0n » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #49

prostoalex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like almost every hotel chain nowadays pitches booking through their own Web site, often throwing some extra perks for direct bookings. They also try to rope the customers in with fairly generous loyalty programs, “unpublished” rates and credit card marketing tie-ins. So yeah, seems like OTAs were okay with this as long as it was IHG, Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Choice Hotels and Best Western doing this on their o…

I’ve tried to book directly through the hotel site. And when I’ve informed the reservation desk the rate is cheaper through an OTA they tell me to book using the OTA. That was a 20% commission they could have kept or given to me as a discount. I guess I don’t know how agreements work. Seems like OTAs are more flexible with pricing compared to the hotel staff.

Because the rate is not released by the hotel. Some agents undercut the rates, or floates a rate that is supposed to be marked up, naked (without mark-up) to the web. Asking the guest to book from the OTA is to see what voucher the hotel receives, and catch that agent as the culprit who undercut the rate without hotel's consent. The agreement with hotel and agent is that hotel can refuse to honour the voucher. In this case, the agent has floated a rate not discussed with the hotel. Hotel asked the guest to go ahead and book if there's a lower rate in OTA. Guest books, hotel has the right to refuse to honour the voucher.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#58

Post by dazc » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 1:37 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #44

dazc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'... but I loathe all of the dark patterns they employ to make that commission.' I tried to leave a negative review for a hotel on booking.com and the overall result was 3.5 out 5! At least with google reviews I can get a fair picture of what the place is actually like. And, all that 'just one room left at this price' is basically fraud. It does annoy me though when I try to book direct and get charged the exact same…

> I tried to leave a negative review for a hotel on booking.com and the overall result was 3.5 out 5! Do you mean tripadvisor? Booking.com works on a scale of 1-10.

Possibly.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#59

Post by dazc » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #43

bkor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know about hotels since airbnb is almost always cheaper AirBNB is super annoying. You have to agree to meet at a certain time. You have to hope they accept your booking. While booking you cannot sort by price, etc. AirBNB informs about demand causing prices to go up in popular periods. Then for most places you basically have to put in writing if you could pretty please rent the place. This while on any hote…

I have a property in France and we use a combination of AirBnB and until now, Booking.com; on AirBnB we have it set to instant book— we essentially have a small hotel type property so we don’t go through the that whole “approval” theater. However I agree AirBnB IS annoying because most people trying to book us always want to ask dumb questions like “is your property still available” — well yes, that’s why you can ins…

'Presumably this is because most AirBnB hosts are non professional and don’t manage their availability calendar correctly (I suppose..)'

Most likely this, in my experience. I sometimes see some listings are crazy low prices (compared to similar properties) and would rather check they haven't made a mistake rather than go through the hassle of booking and being rejected.

As an aside to above, crazy low price doesn't always indicate poor quality on AirBnB - more often it's a switched on owner rather than a fool who thinks people are going to pay high-season prices in low-season.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#60

Post by justaduder » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 1:51 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #24

dragonwriter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be a sour grapes article representing the grudges of online travel agencies (OTAs) against Google. Superficially, but more deeply it's part of the propaganda war the WSJs corporate parent has been carrying out against Google on all fronts for quite a long time, which is in part partisan/ideological, and in part business over similar issues in publishing.

I still don't get why we can't talk about banning "fake news" like wall street journal on hn. These are clearly hit pieces and as my parent mentioned, part of a coordinated effort to undermine Google. They did the same thing with YouTube. Everyone is worse off because of wsj.

No, they aren't "certainly" hit pieces, nor are they fake news.

If you don't like to read the articles, skip them. Or stay on your Facebook page where everything is curated according to your delicate sensibilities. You have no right to deprive others.