EC new designation of Booking: Should European hoteliers be celebrating?, Club Med signs its first in the Gulf and more...

EC new designation of Booking: Should European hoteliers be celebrating?
Wednesday, 15th May 2024

On May 13, 2024 the European Commission (EC) designated Booking as a 'gatekeeper', similar to how it previously branded Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, TikTok, etc.

Holidaymakers will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities and one of the results of this designation by EC is that Booking can no longer include rate parity clauses in its agreements with hotels.

In other words, hoteliers can now publish promotions and lower rates on their websites than what they provide the OTAs with. Will European Hotels benefit from this decision? Depends >>

Club Med signs its first in the Gulf
15 May 2024 : The hospitality landscape in Sultanate of Oman is about to be reinforced with the official signature of Club Med Musandam project, the first Club Med Resort in the Gulf States, with an exclusive beach opening to the astounding Persian Gulf >>

Choice Hotels has launched a rewards exchange agreement with Air France-KLM
15 May 2024 : Choice Privileges® announced the signing of a global agreement with Air France-KLM. The agreement empowers Choice Privileges’ 65 million members worldwide to exchange their points for Air France-KLM Flying Blue Miles, at a ratio of 5,000 points to 1,000 Miles >>

US hotel results for week ending 4 May
15 May 2024 : US hotel performance showed mixed results from the previous week, according to CoStar’s latest data through 4 May >>

Hotel for sale in Mexico
14 May 2024 : HotelsForSaleGlobally, a wholly-owned division of Hong Kong based, Lifestyle Concepts Group is pleased to announce that it has added a new hotel for sale in Mexico to its portfolio >>

HIGHLIGHT ARTICLE

Knowledge is Power in the Restaurant Sector
Wednesday, 15th May 2024

Publicly disclosing information can have mixed outcomes for catering enterprises. Using recent data from the US, they reached this conclusion after probing the link between information asymmetry and firm value in the famously saturated and competitive restaurant sector.

Managers know more about their own firms than investors do. This straightforward fact leads to the well-known information asymmetry problem, which originated in the context of second-hand car sales but also applies in management >>

The Business of Travel
The Business of Travel is the official podcast of the Global Business Travel Association covering all things related to business travel >>

In case you've missed it: Global eNewsletter of May 14, 2024
Hyatt doubles down on Latin America growth with 30+ planned openings, Mexico investment opportunity and more >>