Gail Kirkham, owner of Napier holiday rental Maison Blue.
Gail Kirkham, owner of Napier holiday rental Maison Blue.
A Napier holiday rental owner is angry at delays to payments from Booking.com, a global problem the giant accommodation site has blamed on “planned system maintenance”.
Gail Kirkham owns Maison Blue and says she’s been waiting weeks for back payments of thousands of dollars. The problem has also been reportedthroughout Europe and Britain for the company - part of Booking Holdings, which has a market capitalisation of US$114 billion (NZ$190b).
Amsterdam-based Booking.com has been asked for details about the problem in New Zealand and how many providers were affected and what sums of money were involved. So far it has issued a only generic statement through a public relations firm in this country which says it was “urgently working to resume payments which were delayed as a result of the planned system maintenance and can confirm that payments have been processed, so they should be with our partners soon”.
And while big hotels here don’t seem to have been affected, Hotel Council Aotearoa reminds travellers that they may get a better deal by going to the accommodation provider directly rather than online travel agents (OTAs) such as Booking.com. This helped protect jobs in this country, said the council’s strategic director, James Doolan.
“It pays to phone the hotel and see what’s available. The best-known OTAs are all foreign-owned, meaning commissions find their way overseas rather than supporting businesses with a physical presence and employees in New Zealand.”
Online travel agents typically charged commissions of 15 per cent to 25 per cent, he said.
“Many hotel-brand companies have invested significantly in their own booking platforms and loyalty programmes in order to drive direct bookings.”
Smaller, independent properties sometimes offer incentives such as cheaper rates, room upgrades or a free bottle of wine to thank guests who book direct, said Doolan.
One Auckland man said he used Booking.com to scope what was available and then contacted the accommodation providers directly so they would avoid paying the commission and invest in their properties and provide jobs in this country.
Kirkham said she noticed the problem with Booking.com when payments that normally came through in the middle of the month didn’t arrive from June.
The global booking giant's profitability has rebounded strongly. Photo / 123rf
She said a payment of over $4000 did arrive a few weeks late but she was still owed more than $2700. She has been told this would arrive next week.
In its promotion to accommodation providers, Booking.com says “bringing peace of mind to our partners is a top priority” but she said contacting the company had been a trial. She had spent hours waiting to speak to operators in the booking giant’s call centres around the world.
“It looks pretty worrying. It seems the more noise hosts make, threatening to remove their properties or cancel bookings, miraculously some of the outstanding money owed comes through,” she said
“After reading the continuous stream of the comments on Facebook it appears this is just the tip of the iceberg - and there are a huge number of people worldwide owed a lot of money.”
There was a risk of hosts being left with no other option than to cancel upcoming bookings.
Kirkham said that had ramifications too, with hosts incurring additional charges.
“It is the most frustrating organisation to deal with, yet they seem to forget they wouldn’t have a business if it wasn’t for their hosts.”
Booking.com is owned by Delaware-registered Booking Holdings which operates five other primary consumer-facing brands, Priceline, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, Kayak, and OpenTable. The companies have a presence in more than 220 countries and territories.
Like other parts of the travel system, Booking Holdings’ profits have surged.
In the latest quarter gross travel bookings from all customers, net of cancellations, were US$39.7b, ($64b) an increase of 15 per cent from the prior year.
Room nights booked across the brands increased 9 per cent from the prior-year quarter.
Total revenues were $5.5b, an increase of 27 per cent and net income was $1.3b, an increase of 51 per cent from the corresponding three months.
The website Dutch News reported that when the pandemic hit Booking.com was to slash its workforce of 17,000 by up to 4375 jobs.
About 5500 people worked for the company in Amsterdam and it was heavily criticised for asking for support to pay staff wages in the first round of subsidies, considering it had made a profit of US$4.9b in 2019.
Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
