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par Bertrand DUPERRIN / THE TRAVELGUYS
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For many of you these holidays will be “French” with sometimes a real concern to consume local to participate in the revival of the economy or even make your contribution to the fight for the climate.
You will therefore choose a hotel in France, why not by promoting independent hotels, these are laudable concerns but perhaps you will ruin everything by booking your hotel on an online travel agency (or OTA) such as Booking or Hotels. com
Booking, Expedia and Hotels.com are killing small hoteliers...
OTAs, whether Booking, Expedia, Hotels.com etc... are killing hoteliers' business by taking a commission that can reach or even exceed 20% on the price of your room! We sometimes go up to 30%! When you're called Marriott and you have 6,700 hotels, you can try arm wrestling, not when you're a small independent.
What this means is that the independent hotelier who generally does not make a huge margin, sometimes only has a seasonal activity, will lose up to 30% on his sales. In other words, OTAs bring them customers, volume, but do not earn them money or very little.
If you have booked via an OTA a room at 100 euros per night, it will only cost him 80. Take away his fixed costs, in particular energy, he does not have much left to live on at the end.
If you booked directly on his site or by calling him, the 100 euros will be for him!
So you are going to tell us that Booking, Expedia and other OTAs are often cheaper than booking directly with the hotelier! Well that's wrong!
Most often the hotelier is subject to the OTA's pricing policy or does not know how to "raise" its more interesting direct prices so that you can see them in search engines.
OTAs are not cheaper than hotels
But from the moment an OTA offers you a lower price (because it uses half of its commission against the hotelier) while taking an average of 20% commission, this means that the hotelier can match the OTA or even lower its price by up to 10%...
You just have to contact him directly by mentioning the price you have found. And more often the situation is even more vicious: you will realize that there is, on his site, a lower price than that of the OTA but that it is not offered by the search engines! So no other effort to make on your side except to book directly with him.
How to book your hotel in a “responsible” way?
Tips from TravelGuys:
So we offer you our method and we advise you to adopt it even once these complicated times are over.
1°) If you want, use Booking, Expedia, Hotels.com or others to find the hotel that suits you.
2°) Go to the hotel website. If you find the same price or cheaper book.
3°) If the price displayed at the hotel is more expensive than the OTA, call him and tell him that you have found a cheaper price on an OTA but that you prefer to give him the commission. We promise you it will fit. And if he doesn't, go elsewhere because that means he hasn't understood anything about his business and has no commercial sense, which suggests other disappointments once there.
Come on, be responsible, consume local, but go after your steps. Book directly with the hoteliers!
PS: One last piece of advice: Hoteliers, especially in tourist areas, will experience very difficult years. Ask them to align with the OTA but if you have a bit of ethics and morals do not negotiate to recover the amount of the OTA commission in addition. If the OTA is 100, ask for 100, not 80. The goal is for them to win more without costing you more, not for you to push them further.
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