[quantum2022]

"And hotels hate reservations made over the phone or by email because too many guests never pay a deposit and never show up."

I'm thinking you're from a non-western country, otherwise that would be false; the only wiggle room you gave yourself was 'booking through email' which I don't think even really exists, unless you meant booking through a hotel's website. Hotels take your deposit when you make a reservation over the phone or on their website, and if you book through booking vs the hotel the hotel will lose 15-30% of the room sale.

You have just as many choices when looking for hotels, just look at google or bing. You don't need booking for anything. People rarely just drive up to hotels without checking hotels in the area beforehand on their phone. I'm not familiar with it in developing countries.

[nroets]

Even in Europe there are many smaller boutique hotels who cannot charge your credit card based on a phone conversation. Their bank either require them to use a speed point machine with the card present. Or use an online payment gateway with 3D secure it similar technology.

So they require the deposit as a bank transfer. And this is where the guest gets second thoughts.

People do actually go on road trips. "Oh look how nice that hotel looks. Let's stop and see if they have space for us". They get quoted a high price and that's when the hotel make profit.