ACE conference, Madrid, 17 November 2017 Evaluating hotel price differentiation using metasearch data Analysis of the ECN working group ACE conference, Madrid, 17 November 2017 Jan Sviták | Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets
Outline Monitoring Characteristics of the analysis Results Issues and questions
ECN Working Group Monitoring in reaction to changes in MFN clauses between online travel agents and hotels In 2016 Belgian, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and UK national competition authorities and DG Competition
Characteristics of the analysis Search level data on a stratified sample of more than 4600 hotels from a major MSS Looking at effects of changes to narrow MFNs, Loi Macron and prohibition decision against Booking.com in Germany Difference-in-differences analysis with Canada as a control group Fixed effects on hotel level Price differentiation as a dummy variable signaling non-parity of prices across OTA’s
Results Increase in observed price differentiation in all countries except NL Driven by chain hotels Robust to selection of OTAs
Issues – what do we measure?
Interpretation of the results What does a positive effect mean? Both price and product differentiation increase Price differentiation increases more than product differentiation decreases Product differentiation increases more than price differentiation decreases Differentiation in: Price: + Product: Price: > Product: Price: < Product:
Key questions Are we only interested only in “pure” price differentiation or also other parameters of the offer? Can differences in availability have similar effects as differences in price? Does that influence the usefulness of the MSS data? What is the counterfactual?