This doesn't work anymore, the platform is also used for discovering places.
I have seen this both as a traveller and working in the industry for a little while. If you are not on Booking.com you might as well close, 95% of our reservations came through Booking.com, the rest were other platforms, direct bookings and people walking in.
As a traveller its extremely convenient. I have a single place to do everything, I don't need to sign up anywhere else, I don't have to call, I don't have to worry about payments, in general everything just works without ever speaking to a human, I don't lose time calling around to check availability, I can see fotos and opinions. Consumers are not going to give that up.
On the hospitality side we never cared much about their fees, it has massive benefits as well (lower fraud rate, lower no show rate, integration with front desk software). The only problem is that they generally tend to give the customer the benefit of the doubt when there are any problems so good luck getting rid of bad reviews.
I have seen this both as a traveller and working in the industry for a little while. If you are not on Booking.com you might as well close, 95% of our reservations came through Booking.com, the rest were other platforms, direct bookings and people walking in.
As a traveller its extremely convenient. I have a single place to do everything, I don't need to sign up anywhere else, I don't have to call, I don't have to worry about payments, in general everything just works without ever speaking to a human, I don't lose time calling around to check availability, I can see fotos and opinions. Consumers are not going to give that up.
On the hospitality side we never cared much about their fees, it has massive benefits as well (lower fraud rate, lower no show rate, integration with front desk software). The only problem is that they generally tend to give the customer the benefit of the doubt when there are any problems so good luck getting rid of bad reviews.