OTA Share of Hotel Bookings by Country: Booking, Expedia, Google and Direct

Sources: HOTREC's 2026 European hotel distribution study, OTA and Google documentation, vendor benchmarks and OTALift review data. Every table cell carries a unit and a confidence label.

Key takeaways

The OTA share of hotel bookings by country has no single public answer. No source tells you what share of a typical independent's stays comes from each channel in your country. The closest thing is HOTREC's 2026 study of European hotels: channel tables for 13 countries and OTA mixes for 15.¹

We built the per-country stay table by multiplying two HOTREC samples, then tested reading a channel mix from reviews against 63 OTALift pipeline properties. Expedia is 36% of Booking-plus-Expedia reviews in the US sample and 4% in Poland, so reviews are a ranking tool.²

Before you borrow any country average, export your own last 12 months of room nights by source. Once you know your split, see how OTA ranking works.

Key numbers

• OTAs delivered 29.9% of European hotel overnights in 2025; direct channels delivered 51.3%.¹
• Booking Holdings held 68.8% of OTA bookings and Expedia Group 16.6%, together 85.4% of the European OTA market.¹
• Independents on one PMS in 180 countries booked 63.4% through OTAs in 2025 (a booking share, not an overnight share).³
• Derived, not published: Booking.com accounts for about 19.8% of European overnights (29.9% x 66.1% of OTA bookings).¹
• OTA share runs from 21.1% of overnights in Italy to 39.8% in Hungary among countries with 35 or more hotels sampled; the Netherlands prints 43.0% on 25.¹
• 83% of meta-search-connected European hotels use Google Hotel Ads (adoption, not demand).¹

Why the OTA share of hotel bookings differs by country

What percentage of hotel bookings come from OTAs?

In Europe, 29.9% of hotel overnights in 2025 came from OTAs, against 51.3% direct (HOTREC).¹ Across Cloudbeds independents in 180 countries, OTAs were 63.4% of bookings.³

Both are right: the unit differs. HOTREC counts hotel-reported overnights in Europe, and its "direct" bucket includes phone, mail, walk-ins, email and web forms.¹ Cloudbeds counts bookings at hotels on its own software.³

I could not find a per-country stay table anywhere, so we built one. Each cell multiplies a country's OTA share of overnights (HOTREC page 16) by Booking.com's or Expedia Group's share of OTA bookings (page 93). We read both pages from the rendered images, because the text layer lacks them.¹ The result is a planning value that stacks two samples.

OTA share of hotel bookings by country: Europe, 13 countries, 2025

Booking.com takes between 13.7% (Italy) and 26.8% (Hungary) of overnights, and OTAs as a whole between 21.1% and 39.8% among countries with 35 or more hotels sampled (the Netherlands prints 43.0% on 25).

Country	Direct	Booking.com	Expedia Group	Other OTA	Other channels	Confidence
Italy	64.0	13.7	3.0	4.4	14.9	High (n 539 / 480)
Germany	59.7	22.1	3.5	6.3	8.4	High (n 348 / 293)
Switzerland	58.6	20.9	4.5	3.9	12.1	High (n 165 / 140)
Greece	40.3	18.3	4.6	4.1	32.7	High (n 128 / 103)
Sweden	54.4	18.0	10.3	2.5	14.8	High (n 113 / 100)
Austria	59.9	19.0	2.8	4.1	14.2	Medium (n 87 / 71)
France	56.2	16.5	6.4	2.6	18.3	Medium (n 81 / 67)
Hungary	44.6	26.8	4.9	8.1	15.6	Medium (n 64 / 61)
Spain	36.6	19.7	8.4	7.1	28.2	Low (n 49 / 38)
Finland	62.7	16.3	4.7	3.0	13.3	Low (n 41 / 33)
Slovakia	55.2	19.1	2.0	4.9	18.8	Low (n 39 / 33)
Czechia, 2023	50.2	26.8	2.9	6.0	14.1	Low (n 72 / 55, older edition)
Netherlands	40.7	26.4	7.7	8.9	16.3	Low (n 25 / 21)
Europe, weighted	51.3	19.8	5.0	5.2	18.8	Medium

Hotel booking channels by country, percent of overnights, reference year 2025 unless marked, hotel-reported, mostly independents, chain data excluded.¹⁴ The two n values are the channel sample and the OTA-mix sample. High means at least 100 hotels in both; Medium means 60 to 99; Low means fewer, or an older or stacked basis.

A validator table should be direct / Booking.com / Expedia Group / other OTA / other by country code; Google stays a property-level setting. Treat every cell as plus or minus 5 to 8 points. HOTREC's Czech OTA interval, 35.7% on 72 hotels, runs from 29.2% to 42.2%.⁴ Norway (11 hotels, no OTA mix) gets no row. Google gets no column, for reasons below.

Hungary depends on OTAs about twice as much as Italy. Booking.com's share of the OTA slice runs from 56.1% in Spain to 73.3% in Austria and Slovakia; Expedia Group's from 7.8% in Slovakia to 33.6% in Sweden.¹

What percentage of hotel bookings come from Booking.com?

Booking.com market share by country, as a share of hotel overnights, is about 19.8% in Europe in 2025, between 13.7% (Italy) and 26.8% (Hungary). HOTREC prints the two inputs and never the product, so this is our arithmetic and it is labelled that way.¹

Is Booking.com or Expedia bigger?

In Europe, Booking Holdings holds 68.8% of OTA bookings and Expedia Group 16.6%; in the US, SiteMinder ranks Expedia Group first by revenue.¹⁵ No public source gives the US split of stays.

Booking.com and Expedia market share outside Europe

Outside the 13 European rows (the US, UK, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, the Gulf), each row has its own basis. Do not compare across rows.

Market	What the source measures	Figure	Confidence
United States	Online hotel gross bookings, 2025, offline excluded	OTA 52%, hotel sites and apps 48%6	High as a number, online only
United States	Bookings of Cloudbeds-PMS independents, 2025	OTA 53.3%3	Medium (vendor sample, label inferred from page heading)
US, Canada, Mexico	Revenue rank at SiteMinder properties, 2025	Expedia Group first, Booking.com second, direct third5	Medium, rank only, no magnitude
United Kingdom	HOTREC edition with reference year 2017, n 20	Direct 46.4, OTA 37.9; Booking Holdings 67.1 and Expedia Group 19.2 of OTA7	Low (eight years old)
Poland	Same edition, n 30 / 25	Direct 50.0, OTA 26.4; Booking Holdings 65.7 and Expedia Group 12.1 of OTA7	Low
Turkey	HOTREC 2023, n 32 / 29, inbound-weighted	Direct 55.1, OTA 20.7; Booking Holdings 59.8 and Expedia Group 30.3 of OTA4	Low
Brazil	Sales of 27 member chains, 2024	Direct 45%, OTAs 25%8	Medium for chains, none for independents
Saudi Arabia, UAE	OTA hotel gross bookings, 2024 estimate	Booking.com 60% and 54%; Expedia Group about 14% (derived) and 21%9	Medium (consultancy)

China and Asia publish value shares and vendor panels rather than hotel-reported splits. Trip.com Group holds about 70% of China's online hotel value;¹⁰ D-EDGE panels show direct at 32% of Asian online revenue in 2023¹¹ and 11.2% of bookings in 2025,¹² which must not be trended together.

Turkey shows how far policy moves a global OTA's share. Booking.com has been blocked from domestic bookings there since March 2017, and the ban was still in force in July 2026, though a bill to lift it was in progress as of 31 July 2026. Meanwhile Expedia Group holds 30.3% of OTA bookings in HOTREC's Turkish sample.¹³ How much is the ban and how much is inbound tour-operator mix, we do not know.

For Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand there is no public split beyond ranks. The honest cell says "no public data".

Does Google drive hotel bookings?

Yes, as a referral layer feeding direct and OTA bookings, so no source publishes it as a share of stays. HOTREC says meta-search "has effectively become synonymous with Google Hotel Ads, reflecting Google's dominant role in directing travellers to both direct booking channels and OTAs."¹

For Google Hotel Ads and free booking links, what is measured has a base attached. Adoption: 83% of meta-search-connected European hotels use Google Hotel Ads.¹ Direct bookings: Mirai's analysis of 3,000+ properties found all Google placements delivering 65.7% of direct bookings, with Google Hotels alone falling from 13.4% to 8.9% after the EU's January 2024 changes.¹⁴ Both are shares of direct, in one vendor's base.

Free booking links cost nothing per click, and bids do not affect their ranking.¹⁵ A channel-manager property reaches them through its connectivity partner,¹⁶ and Expedia names Google's travel search as a risk to its traffic.¹⁷

Can review counts stand in for channel share?

Only for ranking markets, never for sizing them.

TrustYou's 2022 sample puts Booking.com at 70% of EMEA reviews and Expedia at 1% (Hotels.com 3%), against 40% and 15% (Hotels.com 11%) in the US.¹⁸ Shiji's 2025 data has Booking.com at 60% in Europe and Expedia above 37% in North America.¹⁹ The direction matches the stay data, but the size is off: in HOTREC's stays Expedia Group is a quarter of Booking.com in Europe (16.6 against 66.1),¹ while in EMEA reviews Expedia plus Hotels.com is about 6% of Booking.com's (4 against 70).¹⁸ That is roughly a fourfold understatement of Expedia at Europe level, and approximate. Expedia's review feed carries only a language code, no reviewer country.²⁰

What "great" looks like: three correct readings

Capture note, 2026-10-11: no live Google Hotels page appears here, because headless capture returned bot-thinned results. The figures are primary-source HOTREC tables and a chart derived from them.

Example 1: Germany, a derivation that shows its work

Why it works: Germany's OTA share is 31.9% of overnights on 348 hotels (page 16); Booking.com is 69.2% of OTA bookings on 293 (page 93, above). That gives 22.1% for Booking.com and 3.5% for Expedia Group. With direct at 59.7%, other OTAs at 6.3% and other channels at 8.4%, the row sums to 100, and the unit, both samples and the label travel with it. HRS's 9.9% of German OTA bookings is a local layer of secondary OTAs that a two-OTA model would miss.¹

Chart note: Czechia (2023) is omitted.

Example 2: A Kraków-type independent that reads reviews as a ranking

Across 14 OTALift pipeline properties in Poland (12 in Kraków), trailing-12-month review intake was 8,036 Booking, 327 Expedia and 1,876 Google; Expedia was linked on 8 of the 14.²

Three checks agree on direction. Reviews say Booking dominates. HOTREC's last Poland row (2017) has Booking Holdings at 65.7% of OTA bookings and Expedia Group at 12.1%.⁷ Czechia runs at 76.4% and 8.1%.⁴ Reviews put Expedia at 4% of the two platforms here; European reviews undercount Expedia, so 4% is a floor.

Example 3: A New York independent with two real platforms

In 23 OTALift pipeline properties in New York, Expedia was 35.4% of Booking-plus-Expedia reviews (3,177 against 5,797).² Public sources agree without a magnitude: SiteMinder ranks Expedia Group first by revenue in the US for the first time since 2021,⁵ and Shiji shows Expedia above 37% of North American reviews.¹⁹

A US manager who tunes only Booking is tuning the weaker source.

Common failure modes

Failure 1: A Google column that double-counts

What's wrong: This chart shows adoption, 83% of connected hotels, yet people read it as demand. Google's output lands inside direct and OTA bookings.¹ How it hurts: A Google slice beside a direct slice and an OTA slice counts one guest twice.

Failure 2: Thin cells read as facts

What's wrong: The bottom row is the number of hotels. Norway is 11, the Netherlands 25, and "Rest of Europe" pools 157 hotels from other countries, including Poland, Portugal and the UK.¹ How it hurts: A Dutch OTA share of 43.0% looks like Europe's highest. On 25 hotels, it is a hypothesis.

Failure 3: Units mixed inside one sentence

What's wrong: "Cloudbeds says the US is 53.3% OTA" is a booking share of one PMS's independents, with a label inferred from the page heading.³ "Phocuswright says 52%" is online gross bookings only.⁶ Neither is a share of stays. How it hurts: Either one, labelled "OTA share" in a revenue model, misleads.

Failure 4: One volume band for every country

What's wrong: A model that sizes OTA volume from review count and price alone treats a 304-review hotel the same in Brooklyn, Lisbon and Kyiv, though Booking.com's slice of OTA business spans 56% to 73% across the countries above.¹ How it hurts: The dollar figure can be off by more than the gap it measures. Our own report did this until its volume rebuild.

Step-by-step fix

1. Export room nights by source. Pull 12 months from your PMS or channel manager (SiteMinder, Cloudbeds, Mews and RezGain users can export by source), in room nights.
2. Sort into five buckets. Direct, Booking.com, Expedia Group (Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, eBookers), other OTAs, and everything else (tour operators, wholesalers, GDS). Agoda belongs under other OTAs to match the table's Booking.com column. Bookings through your own engine from a Google free booking link count as direct.
3. Find your country's row. No row in Europe? Use the pooled "Rest of Europe" row (direct 46.6%, OTA 32.7%) and mark it Low. Outside Europe, use your review split to rank Booking against Expedia and write "no public data" for size. Never borrow a neighbour's cell or Europe's average.¹
4. Compare against the sampling band. Ignore small gaps. Act only on gaps above 8 points, the top of the sampling band. Booking.com 8+ points above your row means direct is underbuilt; read the parity-safe direct article below. Expedia 8+ below in a US or Swedish-type market means check Expedia content and connectivity before blaming demand. Direct far above your row usually means phone and email bookings hide OTA guests.
5. Adjust for your segment. Expedia.com is 6.6% of OTA bookings for hotels under 20 rooms and 20.8% at 100 rooms and above, so larger hotels should expect more Expedia.¹
6. Scale from one platform to all OTAs. If your PMS lumps OTAs under the channel manager and only the Booking extranet reports cleanly, you have a Booking-only figure. Divide it by Booking.com's share of your OTA business, which is the same as multiplying by 1.45 at Germany's 69.2% or 1.78 at Spain's 56.1%.¹
7. Check Google as a setting. Confirm your channel manager is a Google-connected partner and the landing-page price matches the OTA rate.¹⁶¹⁵
8. Repeat per season. Seasonal properties should run high and low season separately.

Soft recommendations

• Count your own review rate: reviews per stay, by platform, over a year. It turns reviews into a sizing tool.
• Record the source on every phone and email reservation. "Direct" is the bucket most likely to hide a channel.
• Next, move volume to direct without touching parity: Direct Bookings Without Breaking Parity.

Self-audit checklist

• I can state last year's share of room nights from direct, Booking.com, Expedia Group and other OTAs.
• Every number I quote names its unit: overnights, bookings, revenue or reviews.
• I know whether my country has its own row and how many hotels sit behind it.
• My Booking.com share of OTA business is measured, not estimated.
• I have confirmed my channel manager sends rates to Google.

How OTALift surfaces this

Our rate-parity report puts a dollar on parity and direct-rate gaps, and its volume estimate now reads this table.²¹ Your last 12 months of Booking.com and Expedia reviews, divided by each platform's review rate and by its share of stays in your country's row, each point to a total number of stays. Your Google reviews point to a third total without needing the table. The report combines them, weighted by each row's confidence label, and splits the total into direct and OTA with the same row. The at-risk share runs from 4.32% of the smaller of the two pools to 4.32% of direct sales, the lift Mirai measured for a direct link on Google, and the headline is shown as that range.

A country without a row follows Step 3 above. A European country takes the pooled Rest of Europe row, marked Low; outside Europe the report sizes guests from Google reviews alone and says the fallback is unbacked. No price floor remains, and a 304-review hotel in Brooklyn and one in Lisbon no longer get the same figure.²¹

The distribution-width check still uses one global Tier-1 list, including Priceline and Hotels.com.²¹ A property cannot yet enter its own volume.

Related articles

• Do Sites Like Super.com Actually Steal Your Bookings?. The secondary OTA tail.
• Direct Bookings Without Breaking Parity. Moving volume to direct.
• Google Hotel Ads & Free Booking Links. The Google mechanics.
• Pillar: How OTA Ranking Algorithms Actually Work. How share and ranking feed each other.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of hotel bookings come from OTAs?

In Europe, 29.9% of hotel overnights in 2025 (HOTREC); across Cloudbeds independents worldwide, 63.4% of bookings. The units differ.¹³

What percentage of hotel bookings come from Booking.com?

About 19.8% of European overnights, derived from HOTREC's 29.9% OTA share and Booking.com's 66.1% of OTA bookings; 13.7% (Italy) to 26.8% (Hungary) by country.¹

How much of hotel demand comes from direct bookings?

In Europe, 51.3% of hotel overnights in 2025, per HOTREC, including phone, mail, walk-ins and email.¹

Is Booking.com or Expedia bigger?

In Europe, Booking.com: 68.8% of OTA bookings against Expedia Group's 16.6%.¹ In the US, SiteMinder ranks Expedia Group first by revenue; no public split of stays exists.⁵

Does Google drive hotel bookings?

Yes, as a referral layer into direct and OTA bookings. Mirai measured Google placements at 65.7% of direct bookings in its base; no source publishes Google's share of all stays.¹⁴

Sources and methodology

---

Authored by {{author}} · Reviewed by {{reviewed_by}} · Last reviewed: {{last_reviewed}}

{{author_bio}}

Footnotes

1. HOTREC / HES-SO Valais-Wallis (Prof. Roland Schegg), "European Hotel Distribution Study 2026," September 2026, reference year 2025. Page 4 (headline shares, "Booking Holdings: 68.8% of OTA bookings / Expedia Group: 16.6% / Together account for 85.4% of the European OTA market"), page 16 (weighted channel table, 13 countries, without chain data), page 93 (unweighted relative OTA shares, 15 countries), pages 142-143 (meta-search and Google Hotel Ads adoption). Segment cuts (company size, page 98; city size, trend series) are from the study's segment tables. "Rest of Europe" (157 hotels) is the pooled column for countries without their own column; HOTREC does not print its member list, so the countries named in the article come from the survey coverage chart (page 12). Tables are images in the PDF; figures were read from the rendered pages. The page 94-95 bar charts print Expedia Group values that differ from the page 93 table; this article uses page 93. https://www.hotrec.eu/media/static/files/import/all_news_2026_2026_35/full-study_european-hotel-distribution-study-2026_hotrec.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷

2. OTALift internal data, Listing and Review aggregates across 63 properties (33 US, 14 Poland, 9 Ukraine, 2 Italy, 5 other), trailing 12 months to October 2026, read-only query 2026-10-11. A non-random sales-pipeline sample weighted to New York and Kraków, far below the 500-property bar for any market claim. Used as illustration only; Expedia listings are linked on 25 of 33 US, 8 of 14 Polish and 2 of 9 Ukrainian properties. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Cloudbeds, "2026 State of Independent Hotels" (calendar 2025): "OTA share of independent hotel bookings rose to 63.4%, with some markets approaching 80%"; "Compiled from 90 million bookings spanning tens of thousands of properties in 180 countries." https://www.cloudbeds.com/articles/2026-hotels-report-reveal/ The industry report page lists the United States at 53.3% under the "OTA booking rate" section (country lists carry no metric label of their own; the OTA reading is inferred from the section heading). https://www.cloudbeds.com/hospitality-industry-report/ Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. HOTREC / HES-SO Valais-Wallis, "European Hotel Distribution Study 2024," reference year 2023. Czechia: direct 50.2%, OTA 35.7% (n 72), Booking Holdings 76.4% and Booking.com 75.0%, Expedia Group 8.1% of OTA (n 55); Czech OTA 95% interval 29.2% to 42.2%. Turkey: direct 55.1%, OTA 20.7% (n 32), Booking Holdings 59.8%, Expedia Group 30.3% (n 29). https://www.hotrec.eu/media/static/files/import/all_news_2024_2024_21/hotrec-distribution-study-2024.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. SiteMinder, "Hotel Booking Trends" (2025 data, findings from over 140 million reservations): "Expedia Group now leads across the US, Canada and Mexico." Revenue rank at SiteMinder customer properties, no percentage shares. https://www.siteminder.com/hotel-booking-trends/ Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. PhocusWire, "US hotel and lodging travel market essentials," Phocuswright Research 2026: "Within online, the split between online travel agencies (OTAs) and hotel websites and apps sits at 52%/48% respectively and is expected to hold steady through 2029." Online channels only; offline excluded. The page blocks automated fetching and was read in a browser on 2026-10-11. https://www.phocuswire.com/news/online/us-hotel-lodging-travel-market-essentials-phocuswright-research-2026 ↩ ↩²

7. HOTREC European Hotel Distribution Study 2018, reference year 2017 (mirror). United Kingdom: direct 46.4%, OTA 37.9% (n 20), Booking Holdings 67.06% and Expedia Group 19.18% of OTA (n 17). Poland: direct 50.0%, OTA 26.4% (n 30), Booking Holdings 65.72% and Expedia Group 12.08% (n 25). https://www.turob.com/assets/Duyurular-Dosyalari-image/2018/Final-full-internal-use-only-version-European-Hotel-Distribution-study.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. FOHB (Brazilian hotel operators' forum), 2025 presentation of 2024 data: direct channels 45%, indirect 55%; OTAs 25%. 27 member chains, 808 hotels, branded chains only. https://fohb.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Apresentacao-FOHB-2025-Versao-Final-14-Set-2025-VF-Para-Evento.pdf ↩

9. VIDEC GCC and Egypt Travel Market Study via Web in Travel. Saudi Arabia: Booking.com "commands 60% of Saudi Arabia's OTA hotel market." UAE: Booking.com 54%, Expedia Group 21%, Agoda 18% of OTA hotel. Saudi Expedia Group "about 14%" is our arithmetic from the study's $330 million of $2.3 billion OTA hotel GBV, not a printed share. Consultancy estimates, demand-side. Both pages block automated fetching and were read in a browser on 2026-10-12. https://www.webintravel.com/saudi-arabia-online-travel-agency-ota-market-skyrockets-ota-air-gbv-hits-us1-9-billion-hotel-climbs-to-2-3-billion/ and https://www.webintravel.com/otas-in-uae-set-for-double-digit-growth-in-both-air-and-hotel-categories/ ↩

10. China Travel News, August 2026, citing LatePost: Trip.com Group with Qunar and Tongcheng about 70%, Meituan about 20% of online hotel gross merchandise value. A metric different from 2018 order-volume figures, so no trend. https://www.chinatravelnews.com/article/190511/ ↩

11. D-EDGE, "Hotel Distribution Report 2024" (2023 data, almost 5,000 independent hotels in Europe and Asia): in Asia "Direct bookings commanded the highest share of online revenue, at 32%." https://www.d-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Hotel-Distribution-Report-2024-EN.pdf ↩

12. D-EDGE APAC 2026 report as covered by PhocusWire: OTAs "roughly 83% of APAC bookings"; direct bookings through hotels' own booking engines "11.2% in 2025." Panel size undisclosed; a different metric and panel from the 2024 report, so the two are not a trend. The page blocks automated fetching and was read in a browser on 2026-10-12. https://www.phocuswire.com/news/distribution/apac-hotel-distribution-slower-growth-rising-regional-otas-direct-channels-under-pressure ↩

13. Hurriyet Daily News, 31 July 2026, on Booking.com's domestic-booking restriction in Turkey. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/booking-com-set-for-return-after-9-years-225021 The March 2017 start date is from Daily Sabah, 18 October 2019: Booking.com's activities "have been restricted in Turkey as a 'precautionary measure' since March 2017". https://www.dailysabah.com/tourism/2019/10/18/local-court-rules-unfair-competition-on-bookingcom-sets-conditions-to-lift-restrictions-1571428079 The Turkish Expedia Group share is from the HOTREC 2023 sample (see the HOTREC 2024 footnote); respondents are inbound-weighted. ↩

14. Mirai, "DMA impact on hotels: 0.8% loss of direct reservations," 14 October 2024. Google Hotels "sinking its share as a 'source of reservations' from 13.4% to 8.9%"; all Google placements remain "the leading source of direct bookings with a solid 65.7% share"; perimeter of 3,000+ properties, eight months before and after 19 January 2024, data-driven attribution. Base is direct bookings of Mirai customers, not all stays. https://www.mirai.com/blog/dma-impact-on-hotels-0-8-loss-of-direct-reservations/ Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩²

15. Google Hotel Center Help, "About hotel free booking links": "There's no cost for clicks on free booking links." "Bids have no impact on the ranking of free booking links." https://support.google.com/hotelprices/answer/10472393 Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩²

16. Google for Developers, "Connectivity partners": "Your connectivity partner sends your rates to Google to get you listed on free booking links." https://developers.google.com/hotels/connectivity-partners Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩²

17. Expedia Group, Form 10-K for fiscal 2025. Revenue is attributed by "geographic location of our websites or points of sale"; US $8,710M of $14,733M. Risk factor: "Certain search providers, such as Google, have increasingly added their own travel search functionality." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1324424/000132442426000008/expe-20251231.htm Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩

18. TrustYou, "Top guest review sources 2022," sample of 11.6 million reviews, calendar 2022. Share of reviews: EMEA (6.1M) Booking.com 70, Google 20, TripAdvisor 4, Hotels.com 3, Expedia 1; US (2.7M) Booking.com 40, Google 27, Expedia 15, Hotels.com 11. Vendor sample, hotel base undisclosed. https://www.trustyou.com/blog/research/top-guest-reviews-sources-2022 Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩²

19. Shiji (ReviewPro), "2025 Guest Experience" via Hospitality Net, 28 January 2026: Europe "The review market remains dominated by Booking.com with a 60% share"; North America "Expedia now represents over 37% of all reviews." Sample and method not stated. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4130626.html Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩²

20. Expedia Group developer documentation, "Guest ratings and reviews" (Static Data Platform). Review fields include reviewerScore, reviewBrand, creationDate, languageCode; no reviewer country or nationality field. https://developers.expediagroup.com/xap/products/xap/static-data-platform/references/guest-ratings-and-reviews Accessed 2026-10-11. ↩

21. OTALift rate-parity report code, schema v8 (2026-10-12): volume.ts, channelShares.ts and volumeConstants.ts (per-platform implied stays, country channel rows from this article, Rest-of-Europe and no-row fallbacks, the 4.32% at-risk range) and the Tier-1 OTA list. The v7 behavior it replaced (size bands, $250 and $500 price floors, plus or minus 40% display range) was verified against a pilot-property regression test (a 304-review hotel at a $246.43 week-weighted rate, small band, $333 a month), read 2026-10-11. ↩ ↩² ↩³