We investigate whether online travel agents (OTAs) assign hotels worse positions in their search results if these set lower hotel prices at other OTAs or on their own websites. We formally characterize how an OTA can use such a strategy to reduce price differentiation across distribution channels. Our empirical analysis shows that the position of a hotel in the search results of OTAs is better when the prices charged by the hotel on other channels are higher. This is consistent with the hypothesis that OTAs alter their search results to discipline hotels for aggressive prices on competing channels, thereby reducing the search quality for consumers.

中文翻译：

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在线旅行社排名，渠道定价和消费者保护

我们调查如果在线旅行社（OTA）在其他OTA或他们自己的网站上设置了较低的酒店价格，则它们是否在搜索结果中分配较差的酒店位置。我们正式描述了OTA如何使用这种策略来减少跨分销渠道的价格差异。我们的经验分析表明，当酒店通过其他渠道收取的价格较高时，酒店在OTA搜索结果中的位置会更好。这与OTA更改其搜索结果以对竞争渠道上的酒店以激进价格约束酒店的假设相一致，从而降低了消费者的搜索质量。