Are they supposed to provide a central search engine with availability and reviews and a large customer base for free to any hotel owner? And when any guest makes a booking, the hotel owner sends them a message "Hey, cancel your reservation on booking and book with me instead and I'll give you a little discount." I guess hackers think that is marvellous, but how is that fair to booking? It is the hotels that ask to be on booking, they are free to do without and many do with great success.
Awaiting the responses saying "The government should provide an online booking platform and ban all others".
Your job as a hotel manager is to do what you can to increase direct reservations and reduce booking.com's share of your total reservations. But the reality is that most are too lazy or incompetent to make guests comfortable to book directly instead of through booking. Some hotels are even so donkey brained that they offer better rates on booking than on their own website. Then cry to regulators?
DMA is the problem, it's not "that hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves". DMA does not regulate (or provide) that "hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves" because hotels were always allowed to do this.
Even I admit that DMA has a couple good things, but it is overwhelmed by the bad. DMA goes way, way too far and it causes destruction.
EU policies are extremely overbearing, arrogant and totalitarian. This is destroying business.
Booking.com can not prevent hotels from providing booking through other sites.
booking.com can not prevent hotels from advertising special deals without giving booking.com a cut.
booking.com must give hotels tools to independent verify advertisements that hotels are paying for.
Booking.com must give hotels access to booking data in real time, and must provide export options for such data.
Booking.com can not give booking.com owned hotels preference over other hotels. (not sure if there are such hotels).
Booking.com can not compete with hotels using the hotels own booking data.
Middle men like Hotels.com etc are destroying business by adding a hidden extra booking fee from the consumers.
