In the footsteps of Booking.com: Price Seeker now differentiates between prices on the mobile web and in OTA App

Revenue 06/10/2020

After monitoring the prices of your desktop website, your mobile website or programs and functionalities such as Booking.basic, Genius or Early Payment Benefit, Price Seeker now also differentiates the prices coming from the Booking App

If a good part of the effort you put into trying to achieve the desired parity involves having your establishment's prices well controlled and monitored in the different channels in which your inventory is offered, then you need to make sure you are aware of the multiple strategies used, especially by large agencies, with the aim of generating invisible disparities, or very difficult to detect. What if you are focusing your attention on one point when it turns out that things are happening right in front of it? The stakes are too high to allow avoidable mistakes.

There is no doubt that loyal customers exist (I swear, I think I've seen some myself), and you may even be lucky enough to have a few among your regular guests, but the truth is that, unfortunately, loyalty It is bought very expensive, but it is sold very cheap . A few euros up or down, at the right time and in the right place, tend to make a difference and drastically unbalance that balance that has cost you so much to establish, reversing the weight of the volume of direct reservations in relation to intermediated ones. A fact to which is added another harsh reality: you are not the only one investing resources to get users to return to your website.

Booking perfectly exemplifies this double-edged OTA profile, as necessary as it is uncomfortable for the hotelier. Necessary because it sells a lot and provides visibility of extraordinary value to the establishment. So much so, that only the brave (reckless?) dare to clip its wings. And uncomfortable, because they are true experts in what they do, the best. That's why we always follow them very closely.

Well-known programs, such as Booking.basic or Genius, are joined by the implementation of more opaque actions, such as agreements with private companies, the use of timers for time slots, or the curious case of the Early Payment Benefit, whose existence We were able to alert them before their arrival in Spain, thanks to Price Seeker and the unconditional support of our international clients.

Furthermore, it is common for them to test their new creations, or to activate them permanently, without informing the establishments, who overnight may be forced to call their account in order to stop “enjoying” a functionality. that they have not requested and that does not benefit them at all. Something that has often also aroused irascibility among its clients. If all these stratagems already make it extremely difficult to trace the prices offered by the American giant, we add a new variable that further complicates the equation: the variable pricing strategy depending on the search device.

Either you arm yourself with patience, or you equip yourself with the best possible technology. We recommend that you opt for a combination of both options, and to help you, we bring you good news. Price Seeker , which already detected and monitored the prices of booking.basic, Genius and Early Payment Benefit in a differentiated way, now also distinguishes between the prices of the Booking mobile website and those of its app . We tell you in detail below.

Differentiate the prices of the mobile website and the Booking app

Controlling and monitoring Booking's pricing strategy is not easy. Until now, Price Seeker already offered you the possibility of performing searches and generating reports differentiating between:

Booking.Basic: Booking functionality through which it offers its users third-party prices, in the event that they are not able to make the best offer available.

Genius: Booking loyalty program through which users benefit from discounts and direct privileges just for registering and completing at least two reservations.

Desktop website: Monitoring the prices offered by Booking on the desktop version of its website.

Mobile web: Monitoring of the prices offered by Booking in the mobile version of its website.

Early Payment Benefit: Discount program subject to payment by virtual cards.

Now, added to this list are the prices that Booking offers through its app, which (surprise) may be different from all the previous ones. Having the possibility of differentiating prices based on all these cases will allow you to better define your revenue management strategy, also segmenting based on search devices.

How to add the Booking App option when creating or editing a report

It works in the same way as it already did with Booking Mobile. You only need to activate the App Search button.

Setting up a Competition Report in Price Seeker

How prices are displayed in the Analyzer

As we can see in the following screenshot, in the prices of the Hotel Occidental Sevilla Viapol shows us an 'A', highlighted with a dark blue background, which identifies the prices of the Booking App.

However, we can also see how the Ayre Hotel Sevilla shows us the price of Booking Mobile, with a highlighted 'M' with a dark blue background, and not that of the Booking App. This has a logic behind it.

If we launch a report with both options activated, Booking Mobile and Booking App, Price Seeker will return the Booking App price only if it is lower than the Booking Mobile price. On the contrary, if the price of Booking App is equal to or higher than that of Booking Mobile, it will only return the price of Booking Mobile.

Price Seeker Competition Analyzer

To make it even clearer, in the following screenshots we show you the searches carried out in Booking App and Booking Mobile to obtain this test report.