A sharp editorial argues that regulatory wins against OTAs and platforms have delivered no meaningful revenue shift for hotels, and that direct guest relationships remain the only distribution asset that compounds.
The EU's Digital Markets Act already forced Booking.com to drop rate parity clauses in December 2024, giving hoteliers the right to undercut OTA rates, but paid placement still dominates visibility.
The EU's €460M fine against Google for favoring its own hotel search results will reshape the results page toward comparison sites, leaving hotel direct links increasingly sidelined or monetized.
Europe banned parity clauses but hotels saw little pricing freedom: OTA ranking algorithms now enforce the same discipline the deleted contract terms once did, and it's far harder to regulate.