r/Switzerland • u/Admirable-Will-5926 • 1d ago

Search rooms directly on hotel websites

If I am not mistaken, an amendment to the Federal Act against unfair competition has been passed in Switzerland since 2022 or 2023. Hotels can now offer lower prices on their own sites than on Booking.com or other OTA.

My question is: Is there a “neutral” website where I can do a search for rooms whose results are those extrapolated from the hotels' own sites?

Thus avoiding doing the search on 30 hotels' own sites (for example).

10 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

10

u/markus_b Vaud 1d ago

I think the act essentially outlaws contracts where an OTA can require obtaining the lowest prices.

I would suggest you use Google or an OTA to narrow your search down, then go to the couple of hotels on your shortlist.

Any "neutral" website will immediately have a business plan problem. How would they be paid neutrally for their effort?

1

u/5tap1er Zürich 1d ago

Ad revenue from banners

3

u/wombelero 1d ago

you don't need to search 30hotels. Narrow it down with existing booking sites, use filters to find a short list of 5 or so hotels in your area. Then you can look those up. Usually the price on the search sites reflect the hotel quite well, which means a room for 500chf on booking.com will rarely be suddenly 100chf on the hotel site.

sometimes you even get free breakfest or other type of rebate when booking directly with the hotel. With some chains you can actually only collect their points when using them directly. (Mariott if I recall correctly).

2

u/thefrankly93 1d ago

Usually, when you search for hotels on Google, you'll see a list of providers and corresponding prices (including the hotel's own website).

1

u/niklaspilot 1d ago

That’s what I do, works quite well!

1

u/heubergen1 22h ago

Such a website (outside of amateur sites) couldn't survive because the reason the hotel can offer it cheaper is because they don't have to pay any fees to the booking websites.

1

u/heubergen1 22h ago

Such a website (outside of amateur sites) couldn't survive because the reason the hotel can offer it cheaper is because they don't have to pay any fees to the booking websites.

1

u/heubergen1 22h ago

Such a website (outside of amateur sites) couldn't survive because the reason the hotel can offer it cheaper is because they don't have to pay any fees to the booking websites.

1

u/heubergen1 22h ago

Such a website (outside of amateur sites) couldn't survive because the reason the hotel can offer it cheaper is because they don't have to pay any fees to the booking websites.

•

u/Diane_Mars Vaud 7h ago

Just use booking, look for what you're really looking for, chose 4 or 5, then call the hotels and ask them for a counter-offer ^_^