OTAs are the clear beneficiaries when it comes to rate parity

Based on new data from RateGain, a maximum of 1 in five hotels in major cities in Europe have introduced a rate parity based rate strategy for the coming three month. Even worse, for the vast majority of hotels, prices on OTA sites were lower than on their own website.

OTAs are the clear beneficiaries when it comes to rate parity.

A new hotel rate parity trends from RateGain for November to January 2012 of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in Europe, shows that the vast majority of hotels don't apply a rate parity pricing strategy.

In top destinations like Paris and London, only a little over 20% of three, four and five star hotels have a rate parity strategy in place. Amsterdam leads the list with the lowest rate parity adoption, with 3% of hotels having a rate parity strategy in place, and 87% of hotels offering lower rates on OTAs than their own website.

Like in Europe, the beneficiaries of rate parity in North America are OTAs and not hotels, in fact only about 10% of hotels apply rate parity strategies at all, with 90% of the remaining hotels offering lower rates on OTA sites than on branded hotel website, or viceversa.

Hotel rate parity trends for December to February 2012 of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in North America. The report shows the percentage of hotels with cheaper rates on their own brand site compared to their rates on other OTAs.

Los Angeles and Toronto leads the report as destinations with no hotels offering rate parity. What's more, both lead also the report with almost 90% of its hotels offering lower rates on OTA sites than their brand websites.

Compared to RateGain's findings on rate parity in Europe, the results look even more troubeling, with OTAs being the clear winner when it comes to rate parity.

Get the full data for Europe and North America.

Madeep.com