[lucaspiller]

I agree it’s better to display the “total cost of stay” in the search results, however that isn’t what Booking.com displays. As OP said they display the “total cost of all nights” which excludes taxes and cleaning/service fees.

A few weeks ago I stayed in an apartment in Austria which was €49 for one night, with a €45 cleaning fee... I thought that seemed a bit crazy (ok there were 7 of us, so still pretty good), but clicking through other results I saw all the properties in this area had similar fees. One had the same price per night and a €70 cleaning fee! I guess it’s a way to avoid taxes or such.

[icebraining]

45€ doesn't sound like much. For a complete apartment cleanup, including bed linen and etc, you need at least three or four hours, so that's around 11-15€/hour. Seems quite reasonable for Austria.

[lucaspiller]

Yeah for Austria it doesn't seem like a bad price, it's just weird that the price is nearly the same as the accomodation fee. And as a Brit the idea of any kind of service fee is pretty foreign in the first place (why not just include it in the advertised price?).

[icebraining]

It's a fixed cost, so they use a fixed fee. If they just added a percentage to the price per night, people who stayed more days would be paying more despite not requiring more cleaning.