With an appeal to the Government of the Russian Federation with a proposal to introduce state-regulated commission limits for booking systems, not exceeding 10%, the Russian Hotel Association made a proposal. According to experts of the association for TURPROM, Russian aggregators, “rejoiced” at the departure of competitors – first of all, Booking, inflated commissions to the limit – which “raises” prices in hotels and leaves the tourist behind – they add.
“In the absence of the main competitor – Booking, Russian aggregators receive this market share. Accordingly, their gross revenue will grow, which allows them, without prejudice to their operating profitability, not only not to increase the size of the commission, but, on the contrary, to reduce it. However, in reality the opposite happens. The average Booking.com commission was 15% (excluding VAT) on sales. Before his departure, the main aggregators were forced to focus on this price, and their commission most often also did not exceed 15%, and for some it was even lower. Now, depending on the region, the hotel and the aggregator company, commissions have begun to reach 25% (excluding VAT) of the booking price, ”the association’s letter to the government says. According to hoteliers, the establishment of an increased commission is unreasonable. It's just that Russian booking systems “took advantage of the stalemate of hotels”, which suddenly lost their main channel of communication with consumers.
“Over the past 5 years, the operating profitability of hotels has decreased to 12-18%, the payback period is approaching 17-19 years. In this situation, the commissions charged to hotels will lead to a decrease in the profitability of hotels to or below the level of self-sufficiency, which will not allow maintaining the infrastructure in a high-quality condition,” the authors of the letter also emphasize. This will not make domestic tourism more attractive, nor will the inevitable rise in prices.
“In the conditions when the government of the Russian Federation implements measures to support the tourism industry, including zero VAT for hotels, cashback, etc., commissions should not increase, but to decline. Please introduce state-regulated commission limits of no more than 10% for electronic booking agencies, ”the hoteliers say.
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