Vertical integration of platforms and product prominence

Morgane Cure, Matthias Hunold, Reinhold Kesler, Ulrich Laitenberger, Thomas Larrieu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

Meta-search platforms, which enable consumers to compare product prices between different sales channels, are sometimes integrated with certain channels. A case in point is the online hotel booking industry where the major online travel agencies are integrated with meta-search platforms. Studying web-scraped data from the meta-search platform Kayak, we find indications that, for a given hotel, the offers of affiliated online travel agents (like Booking.com) are more visible than those of other online travel agents with the same price. Moreover, hotels appear to be less prominent in Kayak’s search results when the rival online travel agent Expedia has the lowest price.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)353-395
JournalQME-Quantitative Marketing and Economics
Volume20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • meta-search
  • hotel booking
  • online travel agents
  • ranking
  • algorithm bias

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