Online distribution
The market of online distribution is getting more and more important for the hospitality industry in Europe.
Unfortunately, the number of relevant market actors is declining significantly and the market shows tendencies towards at least a narrow oligopoly.
In the course of these developments, the hospitality sector in Europe, which is mainly characterised by small and medium sized enterprises, is facing practices in the field of digital distribution, hotel reviews and metasearches that many hoteliers consider to be imbalanced or unfair. Examples are for online marketing practices like brand bidding or domain grabbing.
In addition, hotels are losing sovereignty and control over their rates, distribution and products due to widely applied practices in place, e.g. by having rate parity imposed on them (maintaining identical rates across all online or even offline channels).
Therefore, HOTREC took an initiative to establish some benchmarks of fair practices in online distribution in order to initiate a dialogue with relevant market players with the purpose of ensuring a level playing field for the benefit of guests, intermediaries and hotels.
Position Papers
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4 November 2020
HOTREC Position Paper on the Digital Services Act
Updated - HOTREC's position paper on the Digital Services Act
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24 April 2020
NET and EUTT position paper on state-guaranteed vouchers for tourism
HOTREC has co-signed a position paper destined to EU decision makers requesting support to provide customers with state-guranteed, flexible and refundable vouchers for travel and tourism services. The position paper is available on this page.
