Booking.com - online hotel booking system, founded in 1996.
Timeline
Fame Booking.com It so overlapped other assets of the Priceline Group corporation that it was decided to change its name – in February 2018, Priceline Group became known as Booking Holdings.
As of July 3 , 2013 on the website Booking.com travelers were offered a choice of more than 320 thousand hotels in 184 countries. Their own versions of the site existed in more than 40 countries, including Russia.
Priceline air ticket booking service was bought by Bookings B.V., the Americans paid $ 133 million for it.
In the years since 1997, many similar companies have been created.
Bookings started to behave differently from everyone else.
Many similar companies relied on partnership with chain hotels. Bookings, on the other hand, focused on independents, giving even small hotels, which are the majority in Europe, an opportunity to make themselves known.
Pricing policy has become another competitive advantage.
Others took from hotels up to 35% of the booking price as a commission, Booking.com - 10-12%. The Dutch canceled the prepayment – now travelers could pay for accommodation upon arrival, and in each country they hired managers from local ones so that there would be no language barrier in negotiations with hotel owners.
In 2005, there were already about 7 thousand hotels with exclusive price offers in the company's database, and the turnover reached $ 25 million.
By 1997, the resource offered visitors a database of only 10 hotels, but with the possibility of self-booking.
It all started in 1996 with a small website with a dozen hotels. Then the project was named Bookings.nl