Booking.com is the world's largest online travel agency by both monthly traffic and gross bookings. Founded in 1996 in Amsterdam as a small Dutch startup called Bookings.nl, the company was acquired in 2005 by Priceline (now Booking Holdings) and has since grown into a global juggernaut with roughly 380 to 560 million monthly visits — three to four times the traffic of any competitor in the OTA sector.
Booking.com is the most prominent example of the agency (commission) model in hospitality distribution. Hotels list their inventory and rates on the platform; guests book and pay the hotel directly at check-in or check-out; and Booking.com collects a commission of typically 15 to 18% (higher with the Preferred Partner Program or Visibility Booster). The model's simplicity, combined with Booking.com's enormous demand pool, has made it the single most important distribution channel for independent hotels worldwide.
The company also operates a merchant model option (Booking.com pays the hotel a net rate after collecting the guest payment), but the agency model remains the foundation of its business.
Booking.com's share of European hotel distribution has been the subject of repeated regulatory scrutiny under the EU Digital Markets Act and earlier antitrust investigations focused on rate parity. Wide parity clauses have been banned across most of Europe, but Booking.com's market position has remained largely intact thanks to scale, brand recognition, and the so-called billboard effect that drives direct bookings even from properties that aggressively pursue disintermediation.
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Authorities seized Booking.com's records after 15,000 hotels claimed inflated commission payments due to restrictive pricing rules.
Booking.com is now searchable and bookable through Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, creating a new discovery channel for the platform's 28-million-property inventory.
Booking.com's 2026 Travel & Sustainability Report finds that 74% of travelers factor extreme weather risk into destination and timing choices, with one in three having canceled a trip in the past year due to climate disruption.
Booking.com's 11th annual Travel & Sustainability Report finds that Gen Z leads on stated intentions but Boomers consistently outperform younger travelers on concrete sustainable behaviors — from reducing waste to travelling off-peak.
Booking.com's 2026 Travel and Sustainability Report finds that Boomers and Gen X outperform younger generations on actual sustainable travel behavior, while 100 million room nights were booked at certified sustainable properties in 2025 — a demand signal properties can no longer ignore.