For many hotels, distribution should feel relatively straightforward. You load your rates into your chosen OTA partners, manage promotions carefully, and expect your pricing to appear exactly where you intend it to. But increasingly, that is not what hoteliers are seeing.
NB: This is an article from Right Revenue, one of our Expert Partners
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
In fact, this has become an ongoing conversation in our hotelier community chat, with partners repeatedly raising concerns about rooms appearing on channels they do not work with directly – and often at lower prices than intended.
A guest may discover a cheaper rate on Agoda, another OTA, or even a partner listing on Booking.com, despite the hotel only contracting with one or two core channels.
And when that happens, what starts as a distribution issue quickly becomes a commercial one.
It impacts margin, undermines trust in the direct channel, and can quietly erode pricing confidence across the business.
At that point, the hotel is effectively competing with itself.
Why is this happening?
In most cases, this is not caused by a simple pricing error.
More often, the issue is rate leakage through indirect distribution.
Rates loaded into one OTA can find their way into the wider market through affiliate partnerships, B2B wholesalers, sub-agents, member-only discounts, opaque promotions, and auto rate-match tools.
In other words, inventory intended for one route to market begins surfacing elsewhere, often at a lower public price.
This is exactly what we are seeing repeatedly with partners – rates appearing in places the hotel has not intentionally chosen to sell through.
The commercial impact goes well beyond ADR dilution.
It affects margin, channel profitability, direct conversion, and, perhaps most importantly, guest trust.
If a guest can see your property cheaper elsewhere, your own website immediately feels less credible.
And that is where the real cost sits.
When visibility comes at the expense of profitability
One of the biggest drivers of this issue is the layering of too many OTA promotions.
Preferred partner programmes, member discounts, mobile rates, auto-enrolled campaigns and hidden offers can all widen the gap between your intended BAR and what the market eventually sees.
Hotels understandably sign up to these programmes in the belief that more visibility will lead to more revenue.
