Ban on Booking.com helps competitors

A Turkish ban on online booking portal Booking.com has taken consumers to competitor portals Tripadvisor, Tatilsepeti, and Trivago, as the number of reservations has remained largely unchanged since the court order.

The development was reported by hotel comparison site Trivago, saying that the ban has helped the other sites with significant increase in activities from the Turkish domestic market.

Officials from Trivago, which was founded in Germany in 2005 and actively participated in the Turkish market for the last two years, told Turkish language daily, Dünya, that there has been a rapid increase in reservations made through other websites, following the ban on booking.com's activities in Turkey on March 29, due to unfair competition.

Since access to booking.com has been blocked in Turkey, consumers are opting for alternative booking site or tour companies to make a reservation. According to Trivago, the number of reservations has not decreased; rather Turkish users have been directed to other portals.

Trivago.com, a price comparison site, which frequently comes up with internet and TV commercials, brings together results from different online booking sites to a common portal. The company receives a commission on each reservation made by using the options on its website. It has now decided to focus more on the Turkish domestic market.

It also carries out aggressive marketing campaigns to get more shares from the market. Recently the site announced that it received significant returns and will not pull back on advertising investments. Trivago's marketing activities in Turkey are carried out from its office in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Noting that Turkish holidaymakers have started to make long-term plans using online portals, Tatilsepeti.com General Manager Koray Küçükyılmaz told Dünya that they have experienced a 30 percent increase in booking since the ban on booking.com.