Booking.com, you would probably agree with me, is the leading OTA in Europe. Their booking process is flawless and quick. Their booking conditions as favorable as it gets, for customers and for accommodation suppliers. I can continue on and on. But, why Booking.com allows itself to grow under any condition. If customers put their trust in them, why Booking.com takes it for granted and play with it like it is there to stay forever.
A friend of mine just got back from Poland. He went to see one soccer game and got screwed with his accommodation like you cannot believe. And he didn’t book his room with some unknown booking site or private owner he never heard of. He booked his accommodation through Booking.com. After 12 hours drive, he arrived at the address where his hotel was supposed to be. Funny enough, there was no hotel there. Instead, there was a hut with two old ladies and a fax machine. In their disbelief, my friends handed out their Booking.com confirmation. The ladies waved them off. And off they went. It was a pure crookery. Somebody set the nonexistent property into the Booking.com system, put on advanced purchase rates, invested in the fax machine, and the business started running. To see the extent of how little control the company had over the whole process, shows what was happening afterward. My friend figuring out that they got cheated big time, called Booking.com customer service, and they booked them in another hotel. Another hour’s drive just to find out the same scene. This time there were no old ladies, but gypsies, running a fax machine. Way to go Booking.com!
Booking.com is a big company and they probably won’t lose their business that easy, even with screw-ups like this. But unless they start putting the quality screening process in place, in the long run, their business could get damaged. Do site inspection, because you owe it to your customers.