The real rate parity problem no one is talking about

As our series of quarterly parity reports show, parity issues are at the root of huge potential losses for hoteliers. These have a number of causes, depending on whether OTAs have a contractual relationship with the hotels.

What’s often not discussed is the role wholesalers play in exacerbating this problem when dealing with non-contracted OTAs.

“The basic mechanism involves wholesalers contracting inventory at a big discount and selling it on to OTAs at a discount which still leaves room for the OTAs to undercut hotels,” says Clive Wood, Global Commercial Manager for Parity Insight at OTA Insight. “But it’s surprising how unaware some hoteliers are about what’s happening, day in, day out when guests book through the many channels out there. Just how much of their revenue is being threatened?”

As part of our ongoing work in this area, we’ve gathered a huge number of data-points that match wholesalers to non-contracted OTAs. We’ve analysed this data to produce this infographic.