In a world where data driven decision-making is reshaping the hospitality landscape, Booking.com is taking steps to build on its partnership hotel owners, investors and operators. As part of the steps being taken, the platform is embarking on a series of fact-finding missions to understand what the industry really needs and how Booking.com can better deliver what’s needed.
The plan
Kicking off at IHIF EMEA 2025, the platform hosted a roundtable to hear from decision makers on how their respective organisations work with Booking from a value proposition perspective as well as a data and reporting perspective, and what more the platform could offer in terms of support.
“We want to absorb information from you around what more Booking.com can do to support your business. We really see a really huge opportunity to engage better with the ownership and investment landscapes and the wider travel ecosystem. We want to understand how we can better design tooling and reporting to better inform the decisions in your business,” says Sam Gardner, Key Account Manager - Owner Groups at Booking.com.
“We're very much focused on working directly with hotels on improving or addressing any performance gaps they might see within their OTA distribution so that we can better position tooling, systems, data to help them grow their business,” he added.
Industry feedback
During the roundtable, several attendees stressed the need for clear reporting on net revenue and associated costs. From an owner’s standpoint, there was a clear desire for better visibility into the actual financial impact of distribution decisions. One participant noted that it’s not uncommon to expect a certain cost level only to later discover it’s significantly higher, often due to revenue management choices made at the property level. The disconnect, they said, typically only becomes clear when the final bill arrives.
“Being able to identify the net rate without me having to do separate work to evaluate that will be helpful in terms of decision making on what programs and promotional offers to participate in or not.”
Attendees called for reporting that not only shows topline performance but also clearly identifies net revenue after commissions or fees, which would help inform more strategic decisions about which Booking.com promotions to engage with, especially when balancing revenue potential against associated costs.
When it came to communication with Booking.com, some emphasized the need for empowered local teams while others stressed the importance of having a single point of contact cutting across all elements of the broader Booking.com platform.
“If something goes wrong, it's very difficult to penetrate and find the right person in Booking.com,” an attendee commented.
Turning to the artificial intelligence revolution, attendees also sought clarity on the platform’s plans in relation to AI, seeking greater transparency around Booking.com's strategy. With many businesses exploring their own AI tools, there was concern about potential overlap and confusion. They stressed the importance of understanding how the platform’s AI developments would align with partner efforts, emphasizing the need for a clear value proposition and collaborative approach.
A desire for more granular segmentation of bookings to improve decision-making was also expressed.
Takeaway and next steps
Commenting on the attendees’ feedback, senior manager - global owner groups & hotel management Matthias Schreiner noted that many of the needs expressed were already provided by Booking.com but acquiesced that more work needed to be done to improve stakeholder knowledge of the breadth of insight offered by the platform.
Gardner was quick to emphasize Booking.com’s willingness to build on its data reporting tools, highlighting two reports developed in collaboration with the industry – the Indexing Report which offers performance benchmarking against competitor sets on ADR, occupancy, cancellations and length of stay, while the Incrementality Data reveals revenue and room nights generated solely through Booking.com’s exposure.
Moving forward, the platform plans to embark on follow-up engagement across major industry events including the NYU IHIF in June and IHIF Asia in September to collect more insight which will help refine existing tools and create new solutions.
“We’ll be hosting similar roundtables and consolidating further feedback from our other regions as well. Then we’ll compile the feedback and circle back to stakeholders to create additional opportunities when it comes to reporting, hopefully by the end of the year,” Gardner noted.