Duff on Hospitality Law

This week’s Update features a variety of topics including the latest on Indonesia’s efforts to regulate OTAs, Spotnana’s new “event” travel booking tool and new record marketing spending by the largest OTAs (no surprise).

• Booking.com and Expedia May Face Indonesian Bans.  As of this past week, several large OTAs (including Booking.com and Expedia) had still not complied with Indonesia’s requirement to register as Private Scope Electronic Systems Operators (PSE).  The requirement is part of a regulation passed in November 2020 that requires digital platforms to obtain licenses to operate in Indonesia.  Recently, Indonesia has stepped up enforcement efforts around the regulation including blocking PayPal and other gaming websites temporarily in 2022.  Earlier this month, the remaining unregistered travel booking platforms (Airbnb, Agoda, Expedia, Booking.com, Trivago and Klook) received letters from Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information asking that the platforms complete their registration by the end of the month.  Airbnb and Agoda have since registered.
• Spotnana Releases “Spotnana Events,” a Group Travel Booking Tool.  Despite its name, Spotnana Events isn’t a meeting booking tool.  Users of the platform won’t be able to book meeting rooms and associated food and beverage.  Instead, the new corporate tool allows users – both profiled and, notably, unprofiled - to book travel that is tied to a particular event, event dates, event booking parameters, etc.  The new technology will be made available to both regular corporate users of the Spotnana travel management tool as well as standalone users.  The tool will also be made available to channel partners and as a white label solution.
• OTA Annual Sales and Marketing Records Are Broken, Again.  In 2023, Expedia Group, Booking Holdings, Airbnb and Trip.com spent collectively $16.8 billion in sales and marketing (which represents a 20% increase over their 2022 combined total).  Of the four, Trip.com saw the largest spending increase – increasing 2022 amounts by 117% (and roughly equally pre-pandemic amounts).  Not surprisingly, the two largest spenders were Expedia Group ($6.9 billion in sales and marketing (including B2B commissions under its growing B2B platform)) and Booking Holdings ($6.8 billion for marketing).  For Expedia, the amounts spent on sales and marketing equate to 54% of total revenue.  For Booking Holdings, its expenditures represent 32% of total revenue.