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Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

wsj.com

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Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#61

Post by arthurfm »

lordgrenville wrote: post #40
alpb wrote: post #4

Protip: you can just paste the following to the address bar to bypass the paywall: javascript:window.location='https://facebook.com/l.php?u='+window.location

Still paywalled for me. Maybe FB users have a metered paywall?

Try this bookmarklet instead...

    javascript:location.href='https://facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
It successfully bypassed the paywall for me.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#62

Post by monort »

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…

It's not a dumb question, try to travel with airbnb and you will find that a lot of hosts do not update their calendar, when they get a booking via other avenue. It's especially frustrating, when the host enabled the instant booking.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#63

Post by nol13 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #7

Yay anti-competition! It's it impossible for any large company to simply make a better product any more and use that to compete? Or must it always be bend the rules, bend the law, lock people in to avoid competition? Is there an alternative?

Dunno first-hand about hotels, but at least for flights google's interface is VASTLY better than any alternative I've found. It's like they actually let me find the information I'm looking for.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#64

Post by fjsolwmv »

bkor wrote: post #30
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…

> Most hotel chains guarantee the lowest rates on their websites To be clear: My response is not about OTA vs Google. It's OTA vs hotel. Various OTAs used to have clauses in their contracts prohibiting this. See e.g. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ad48f831-75c3... . They made them switch terms. Before that it was pretty much impossible for a hotel to offer a lower rate through their website. Consumers…

Why are customers helped by driving OTAs out of business?

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#65

Post by dawnerd »

dazc wrote: post #20
ckastner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the OTAs (who have been living off fat profits for years; see Priceline stock [1]) get none of my sympathy. Any move that hurts Booking.com's revenues is a good move, by me. I don't have an issue with them taking 20% commission, but I loathe all of the dark patterns they employ to make that commission.

'... 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…

And that pretty much explains why even the worst hotels are rated the same as the high end places. Well besides the obvious paid reviews. It’s becoming a real hassle to find places that are not rundown messes that don’t cost 200+ a night (and even then...)

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

dmode wrote: post #25
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.

Can you elaborate on the WSJ's agenda against Google ?

There's two parts two News Corp’s war on Google, the narrow business part concerns Google being key to reach but squeezing out profits of online publishers (especially in the news arena) exactly the way this article complains it does to travel agencies, the broader political part has to do with Google's perceived alignment with the Democratic Party and how that conflicts with News Corp’s broader partisan political agenda.

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#67

Post by sloxy »

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.

The OTA can buy & manage it's own stock of hotel rooms in advance for hotel X and then sell them on for $whatever, $whenever.

Not every OTA is just a proxy. Some maintain their own stock and do forecasting/yield management etc..

Re: Google works with hotels to hurt travel competition

#68

Post by dmode »

dragonwriter wrote: post #66
dmode wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the WSJ's agenda against Google ?

There's two parts two News Corp’s war on Google, the narrow business part concerns Google being key to reach but squeezing out profits of online publishers (especially in the news arena) exactly the way this article complains it does to travel agencies, the broader political part has to do with Google's perceived alignment with the Democratic Party and how that conflicts with News Corp’s broader partisan political ag…

Thanks. This makes sense.
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