The two dominant players in the hotel accommodation market Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, hold 71% and 15% share of the online travel agencies (OTAs) market, with Booking recording 10% growth over the past 10 years and Expedia 2% over the past 2 years.
In addition, OTAs set prices arbitrarily in 4 out of 10 cases. Also, their offers from multiple sources, listing the prices and availability of other OTAs on their own platform, negatively affect 1 in 2 hotels in Europe.
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These are some of the key takeaways from HOTREC, the Pan-European Hotel and Catering Confederation survey of hotel room supply channels in Europe 2024, which examines recent developments and trends in the accommodation sector in Europe and outlines the ways in which visitors make hotel reservations.
For his part, the president of HOTREC, Alexandros Vassilikos, commented on the results of the survey, pointing out: “Hotel companies invest to provide the highest possible quality services at the best possible prices, even yet many times our efforts fall in vain because of the technological giants that mediate and arbitrarily determine the terms of sale and this comes at the expense of consumers, hotels and especially small ones”.
The main conclusion of the hotel survey
Among the main conclusions of this year’s research are the following:
– Over the past 10 years, OTAs have gained an average market share of 10% in the European hotel sector, highlighting their growing influence.
– Sales channels for European hotels have returned to pre-pandemic trends where direct bookings continue to decline.
– Hotels rely heavily on OTAs for bookings, especially small hotels with small rooms
– Online room availability accounts for 45% of nights booked in real time through online channels (online travel agencies, social media, online booking engines of hotel website, etc.).
HOTREC President Alexandros Vasilikos also highlighted:
“Despite the many efforts and investments made by European hotels for their digital transformation, in many cases we still do not have full control over the sale of our own product. Therefore we need a new balanced relationship with Online Travel Agencies and in this direction it is very important that we have been able to force platforms like Booking to comply with certain rules. We continue the effort at the European level to firmly implement Digital Markets Act (DMA) and establish equal digital rules that will guarantee free competition in hospitality in Europe.
The research was carried out in early 2024 in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences Valais, Switzerland (HES-SO Valais Wallis). This is the sixth consecutive survey since 2014, with the aim of monitoring the evolution of European hotel room supply channels with a particular emphasis on paper.