Op-Ed: Hotels Set the Rate, but Booking.com's Merchant Model Sets the Price

This is an opinion piece, but the figures it cites go to a live question for independent hotels: who controls the price guests actually see.

Writing in Hospitality Net, Markus Busch, editor and publisher of hospitality.today, argues that through its merchant payment model Booking.com now sets the guest-facing price below what hotels load, effectively outsourcing pricing control for an estimated one in five independent room nights sold.

The numbers cited

• Booking.com captures 66.1% of OTA bookings for surveyed hotels.
• 70% of Booking Holdings' 2025 bookings ran through its payment business, up from 63% previously, and 72% by early 2026.
• At independent hotels, Booking.com alone brings 7 in 10 OTA bookings; at chain hotels, Expedia brings about one-third of OTA bookings.
• In a HOTREC study of 1,882 hotels, 51% said an OTA sells their rooms below their set rate, up from 40% two years earlier. 65% use Booking.com's payment service despite concerns, and 8 in 10 said they never agreed to below-rate pricing.
• 44% confirm OTAs pass rates on to other platforms; 26% don't know.

The argument

Under the merchant model, hotels set rates in their own systems, but Booking.com can display a lower guest-facing price and pay the hotel its stated rate minus commission. Booking.com describes its Booking Sponsored Benefit this way: "Your rates appear lower on our platform than the rate you set."

Busch's conclusion: "The hotel still sets the rate. Booking.com sets the price everyone else checks against." He adds that "for your guests, its price is what a room at your hotel costs," which in turn shapes direct-booking and reservations-desk pricing.