AMSTERDAM, April 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Today Booking.com, an operating
business of The Priceline Group [NASDAQ: PCLN] announced its
support of recent decisions by the National Competition Authorities
in France, Italy and Sweden to accept amendments to Booking.com's
parity commitments in respect of hotels located in those countries.
Under the new commitments, Booking.com will abandon its price,
availability and booking conditions parity provisions with respect
to other online travel agencies. This will create an
environment that supports increased transparency and competition
among online travel agencies which will ultimately benefit
consumers, as well as hoteliers, by encouraging the freedom for
properties to offer different pricing and booking policies (e.g.
free cancellation, WIFI, breakfast) through different online travel
agencies.
The commitments do allow Booking.com to retain its "narrow MFNs"
for prices and booking conditions which will ensure hotels offer
the same rates and booking conditions on Booking.com as they do
through their own direct website. Furthermore, the commitments do
allow Booking.com to require a minimum allocation, or some
availability, from hotels. This assurance of being able to offer
competing prices and being able to offer rooms allows Booking.com
to continue to provide consumers a coveted and valuable service
that delivers transparency, access to information, choice, value
and a seamless experience for consumers, and also allows
Booking.com to continue to serve as a highly cost-effective
marketing channel for hotels, by helping the hotels to market and
promote their property to consumers around the world, reach new
subsets of travelers and ultimately fill their rooms to keep their
businesses growing.
"Our business and teams are driven by one goal, which is to
deliver an amazing, unrivaled experience to our global customers
who use us to find and book accommodations in a simple, convenient
and trustworthy way, both here in Europe and around the world," said
Darren Huston, CEO of Booking.com.
"We welcome and encourage fair competition in the marketplace
because competition drives innovation, efficiencies, and most
importantly, greater value for consumers. We believe today's
decisions represent a continued, coordinated effort to promote
competition in a way that supports innovation and encourages
companies like ours to continue to invest in the capacity and
technical solutions that ultimately result in more customers for
our partners and more tourism across Europe and abroad."
Booking.com intends to implement these commitments throughout
the European Economic Area and is working with all other European
National Competition Authorities towards this objective.
Booking.com trusts that its commitments will set the tone for an
industry wide solution which all European NCAs will endorse and
safeguard.
About Booking.com:
Booking.com is the world leader in booking hotel and other
accommodations online. It guarantees the best prices for any type
of property - from small independents to five-star luxury. Guests
can access the Booking.com website anytime, anywhere from their
desktops, mobile phones and tablet devices, and they don't pay
booking fees - ever. The Booking.com website is available in 42
languages, offers over 625,000 hotels and accommodations including
more than 245,000 vacation rental properties and covers over 75,000
destinations in 212+ countries and territories worldwide. It
features over 45 million reviews written by guests after their
stay, and attracts online visitors from both leisure and business
markets around the globe. With over 17 years of experience and a
team of over 8,600 dedicated employees in 155+ offices worldwide,
Booking.com operates its own in-house customer service team, which
is available 24/7 to assist guests in their native languages and
ensure an exceptional customer experience.
Established in 1996, Booking.com B.V. owns and operates
Booking.com™, and is part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN).
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or learn more at http://www.booking.com.