Notes · Hotels and restaurants
Your room may be sold cheaper on websites you have never heard of. One hotel in four does not even know whether it happens.
What the 2026 European hotel distribution study says about unauthorised undercutting and rate redistribution, why the upper end is hit hardest, and what I would check before the problem reaches the front desk.
Picture this: a couple arrives on a Friday at your five-star hotel in Gstaad. They have a booking the front desk does not quite recognise. The room is not the one they thought they had paid for, the breakfast they assumed was included is not, and the payment was taken by a website nobody at reception has heard of. They paid 8% less than on your own website. And the person apologising is your receptionist.
When people talk about platforms, they almost always talk about commission. In luxury, I think the important question is a different one: do you know where your room is being sold today, at what price and with what description?
What the study reports.
On 15 September 2026, HOTREC, the European hospitality association, published its hotel distribution study, led by Professor Roland Schegg of HES-SO Valais-Wallis. It draws on information from 2,713 hotels: 1,882 individual responses from 28 countries and aggregated data from 831 chain properties, with 2025 as the reference year.
51% of hotels say platforms undercut their price frequently or occasionally, against 43% in 2023. Of the affected hotels that answered the follow-up question, four in five had not agreed to it. The most common discount is between 6% and 10%, and its size has barely changed since 2023: what is growing is how often it happens. The study itself describes this undercutting as funded by the platform’s commission.
The part almost nobody looks at.
The second practice has a technical name, multi-sourcing: the platform redistributes the hotel’s rates or availability through other platforms or intermediaries. 44% of hotels say it happens to them, 30% say it does not, and 26% do not know, three points more than in 2023. And the problems are growing: hotels reporting frequent problems from the practice rose from 11% to 17%.
The consequences hotels list are not spreadsheet issues: confused guests, wrong room descriptions, billing problems, overbookings, unclear responsibilities, extra work for staff and less control over inventory. And according to the study, the most affected profile is four- and five-star hotels, medium-sized or large, with high exposure to platforms.
What the study does not say.
These are perceptions reported by the hotels that chose to respond, not measured prices. HOTREC is an industry association and supports a collective action against Booking, so it has a position in this debate. And the data blends 28 countries, without separating Switzerland, Spain or the luxury segment. Even so, the fact that one hotel in four does not know whether its rate is being resold is a finding in its own right.
The blind spot.
In a three-star hotel, a badly described booking is a nuisance. In a five-star hotel, it is a poor first impression on someone who paid precisely to avoid surprises. Guests do not distinguish between the website that sold them the room and the hotel that delivers it. For the person arriving, the mistake is the hotel’s.
Guests do not know whom they booked with. They think it was you, and they will hold you to account.
Where I stand.
I do not think the answer is to leave the platforms. I think a luxury hotel should know, every month, where its room appears, at what price and with what description, and should have on its own website the clearest and most complete version of its offer. The first can be monitored with method. The second is designed. A hotel that does not know where its room is sold does not control its price either.
What I would check.
- Test searches. Search for your hotel every month on hotel search engines and metasearch sites, from several countries and devices, and record who sells it and at what price.
- The source of every booking. That the system records which channel it came through, and that reception asks, naturally, where the guest booked when something does not match.
- Contracts with intermediaries. What they say about publishing on open websites the rates you give them for packages or closed sales.
- The pre-arrival message. An email confirming room, board and payment, so the odd booking is caught before Friday, not at the desk.
- Your own website. That it is the place where the room, the conditions and what is included are explained better than anywhere else.
Where to start.
- This week
Search for yourself
Ten searches for your hotel on real dates, from two countries, recording channel, price and description.
- This month
Cross-check with bookings
Compare what you found with the channels you have contracted, and flag the ones you do not recognise.
- This quarter
Automate the confirmation
A pre-arrival message, in the guest’s language, that confirms what was booked and alerts reception if something does not match.
- Every month
Repeat the check
The same searches, the same table and one person responsible for looking at it.
This afternoon, search for your hotel’s name together with next week’s dates and look, calmly, at who is selling your room and at what price. Do not stop at the first platforms. Go down to the second page.
If you find your room cheaper on a website you do not know, you know something many hotels do not. And a harder question appears: if the guest who booked there has a problem, whom will they blame, that website or you?
If you would like me to review how your hotel is presented away from your website and whether your own website is the best version of your offer, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. What to do about an intermediary reselling your rate is for your contract and your legal adviser to decide, not a designer.