What is hotel rate parity?

Rate parity is the practice of maintaining consistent rates across all distribution channels. If the quoted price on hotels’ own websites is the same as the price shown by OTAs and other third-party channels then there is rate parity.

If the quoted price on hotels’ own websites is higher or lower than the price shown by OTAs and other third-party channels then there is disparity.

The two main sources of disparity arise from:

Contracted OTAs who have a direct relationship with hotels, but undercut the hotel’s brand.com price or have an unauthorised promotion in place which results in price discrepancies
Non-contracted OTAs who receive inventory from wholesalers with rates that were supposed to be sold as a package, but have been stripped down. This results in a rate that should be at B2B rates, rather than B2C.