Booking Holdings is piloting a service that offers access to third-party technology platforms for its hotel customers.
The marketplace pilot, which is part of BookingSuite, has been running since before late 2017, with various partners from property management systems to channel managers and content specialists
participating to gauge take-up.
It’s an interesting evolution for B2B platform BookingSuite, which was originally put together after Booking Holdings acquired a string of hotel technology companies.
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The accommodation giant acquired digital marketing specialist Buuteeq, closely followed by cloud-based PMS HotelNinjas in mid-2014 and then revenue management specialist PriceMatch in May 2015.
Some of the elements of PriceMatch were built into Booking.com's RateManager tool, which was closed by Booking Holdings earlier this year.
Uncertain fate
While some in the hotel industry believed BookingSuite was closing and moved to other systems, a spokesperson for the company says there
are no plans to shut down the B2B platform.
Details of the pilot, including some of the third-party providers involved, have since emerged along with information showing how hotels could link to those suppliers.
It is understood that Booking.com requested follow-up information from suppliers on whether leads from hotels had resulted in business and what the deals were worth.
In a fresh twist, suppliers were told at the end of May this year that the third-party marketplace was also being shut down.
However, the spokesperson for Booking Holdings says the company was “still very much testing this product” but declined to provide any further details.
In another marketplace-related move for Booking.com, the company recently began taking hotel inventory and rates from other online travel agencies.