Online Travel Agencies and Beyond: The Role of Sales Channels for Hotels and Consumers

Lasio Laura (), Jack (Peiyao) Ma (), Andrea Mantovani (), Carlo Reggiani () and Néstor Duch-Brown ()
Additional contact information
Lasio Laura: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Jack (Peiyao) Ma: University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Andrea Mantovani: TBS Business School, Toulouse, France
Carlo Reggiani: European Commission JRC, Seville, Spain and Department of Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Néstor Duch-Brown: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Seville, Spain

No 25-07, Working Papers from NET Institute

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of online travel agencies on hotel pricing strategies, consumer behavior, and market dynamics within the hospitality sector. Using channel-level proprietary data from major hotel chains across eight European countries, we adopt a structural approach to estimate demand and supply, and simulate policy counterfactuals. Our findings reveal that online travel agencies expand demand without exerting significant competitive pressure on market prices, due to limited substitutability between sales channels. We assess potential regulatory interventions. A fee cap would benefit hotels in the sample and consumers, while hurting outside competitors. Provisions that facilitate direct communication between hotels and customers, in the spirit of the disintermediation allowed by the DMA, would be successful in shifting some sales from the platform to the hotel website while reducing margins overall.

Keywords: Online Travel Agents; Platform Regulation; Hotel Pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D40 K20 K21 L10 L50 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2025-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.netinst.org/Peiyao_25-07.pdf (application/pdf)
no

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:net:wpaper:2507

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from NET Institute
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicholas Economides ().