Online travel agency (OTA)
Updated
An online travel agency (OTA) is a website or app that sells other companies' hotels, flights or trips, often for a commission.
The UK's CMA (6 Feb 2019) secured changes from six hotel booking sites, including Expedia, Booking.com and Agoda. They agreed to say when commission affects how hotels are ranked, and to show compulsory charges in the headline price. The CMA made no finding on whether the sites had broken consumer law. It says their commitments are not an admission of a breach.
In hotel marketing, "native ads" can also mean paid placements inside an OTA's own search results. Skift reported in 2021 that Booking.com was testing them in destination searches. Example: a hotel pays an OTA commission on each booking while running its own ads to win direct bookings.
Related: destination marketing organization · cost per booking · native advertising