Booking.com



Booking.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine for lodging reservations. It is owned and operated by and is the primary revenue source of United States-based Booking Holdings. Booking.com is headquartered in Amsterdam.

The website has 28,425,726 listings in 148,470 destinations in 228 countries and territories worldwide. Each day more than 1,550,000 room nights are reserved on the website. The site is available in 43 languages. Its slogan is "Homes, houses and everything in between", although in commercials it is "Booking.com: Booking.yeah".

History
Booking.com was formed when bookings.nl, founded in 1996 by Geert-Jan Bruinsma, merged in 2000 with Bookings Online, founded by Sicco and Alec Behrens, Marijn Muyser and Bas Lemmens, which operated as Bookings.org. The name and URL were changed to Booking.com and Stef Noorden was appointed as its CEO. In 1997, Bruinsma wanted to post an ad in De Telegraaf, the Dutch newspaper with the highest circulation. The ad was rejected since De Telegraaf only accepted ads with the phone number, not with a website. In 2002, Expedia refused to buy bookings.nl.

In July 2005, the company was acquired by Booking Holdings (or Priceline Group, as it was named at the time) for $133 million, and later it cooperated with ActiveHotels.com, a European online hotel reservation company, purchased by Booking Holdings/Priceline for $161 million.

In 2006, Active Hotels Limited officially changed its name to Booking.com Limited. The integration successfully helped its parent improve its financial position from a loss of $19 million in 2002 to $1.1 billion in profit in 2011. This acquisition was praised by some social media as “the best acquisition in Internet history” since no other acquisition in the digital travel market had been shown to be as profitable.

Darren Huston was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Booking.com in September 2011 by its parent company, and also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Booking Holdings since 1 January 2014 until his resignation on 28 April 2016 after an at-work relationship was revealed.

After Gillian Tans resigned in 2019, Glenn Fogel took over as CEO

Partnerships and agreements
In August 2012, Ctrip, a Chinese online travel company, formed a partnership with the company to allow Ctrip to access Booking.com's global portfolio. The partnership was deepened in June 2018.

In February 2013, Panorama Group, Indonesia's largest tour and travel company, formed a strategic partnership with Booking.com to access Booking.com’s portfolio of hotels.

In October 2014, Ural Airlines formed a partnership with Booking.com.

Advertising
Booking.com and its sister companies were the top spender in the travel & tourism category for Google Adwords in 2016, spending $3.5 billion in PPC, Pay-per-click.

In January 2013, Booking.com’s first brand campaign, ‘Booking.yeah’, was launched online, aired on television stations and in movie theaters and on TV networks, for the U.S. market with advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam. In September 2013, Australia became the second market to view the campaign. In January 2014, the company launched an advertising campaign in Canada, in February 2014 the company launched an advertising campaign in the U.K. and in July 2014, the company launched an advertising campaign in Germany.

Applications development
In November 2010, the company launched a hotel and lodging mobile app for the iPad.

In February 2011, the company launched its mobile app on Android.

In April 2012, the company launched the first global last-minute hotel app, ‘Booking.com Tonight’, designed for iPhone and iPod Touch.

In October 2012, the company launched its first app for Microsoft Windows, using Windows 8.

In October 2012, the company updated the version of the iPhone app with a new function, Passbook.

In December 2012, the company launched its Kindle Fire app, which is available for download in all Amazon's Appstores including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Japan.

In July 2015, the company launched an improved Android mobile app.

Anti-competitive allegations by OFT
In September 2012, the United Kingdom's competition authority, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), issued a statement of objections against Booking.com, Expedia, and IHG Army Hotels. The OFT alleged that Booking.com and Expedia had entered into separate arrangements with IHG which restricted the online travel agent's ability to discount the price of room only hotel accommodation. Booking.com, Expedia and IHG proposed the OFT to change their restrictions. The OFT accepted the proposal, but it was later rejected by a higher authority at a tribunal.

Leaks of customer data
In November 2014, it was revealed that criminals were able to obtain customer details from the website. Booking.com said it was countering the fraudsters and refunding customers from the UK, US, France, Italy, the UAE and Portugal, all of which had been affected. Since the fraud, Booking.com has made changes so data can only be accessed from a computer linked to the hotel's server. Its teams have also worked to "take down" dozens of phishing sites, as well as working with some banks to freeze the money mule bank accounts.

The website was again targeted by hackers in June 2018.

Brand hijacking accusations by German hotelier
In February 2015, an open letter published by German hotelier Marco Nussbaum, co-founder and CEO of the "prizeotel" budget-design hotel brand, was highly critical of Booking.com's "brand hijacking" activity. His letter outlined details relating to Booking.com's use of Google Adwords, and how it was doing damage to his business. The letter was discussed in specialist media and led to a debate concerning current difficulties and challenges for online distribution within the hotel industry.

Prohibitions against offering lower rates
In April 2015, French, Swedish and Italian competition authorities accepted a proposal by Booking.com to drop its "rate parity" clause and thereby allow competitor travel agents to offer lower hotel prices than Booking.com. Booking.com further agreed to extend and apply its proposal across all EU states Hotels are still prevented from discounting prices directly on their own websites.

Allegations of market dominance
In April 2015, The European Union warned that Booking.com is one of several internet firms that may have reached market dominance beyond the point of no return.

Violations of Turkish competition law
In March 2017, a Turkish court halted activities of Booking.com due to a violation of Turkish competition law. Booking.com halted selling rooms in Turkey to Turkish users, obeying the order to block the website. However, the website and application can be used from foreign countries to make reservations for hotels in Turkey.

Disputes with hotels in Greece
In July 2019, luxury-hotel chain Aldemar, invoking "practices [by Booking.com] that go against the laws of the market," terminated its participation in Booking's offerings. The Greek Hotels Association denounced the practice of Bookings.com of charging its percentage fee on the VAT-inclusive full room-price. The company responded that, according to the terms of its bilateral agreements with hotels "everywhere," each party to such an agreement is free to walk away from it.