[spanishlady]

I think the writer is referring to the vacation rental industry not to hotels, which is a different ballgame altogether and where customers DO want to make comparisons and often to make decisions which are purely priced-based, for convenience. In the holiday rental business the quality of the experience for the customer should be at the top of the agenda, and this is where the aggregators have got it totally wrong, in their search for shareholder value. If you search in one of the big sites the first several pages are occupied by those properties which are going to bring the most revenue to the aggregator and which in many cases are in turn inventory provided by another site with little or no knowledge of the individual properties. You will probably never get tot he well managed properties with many 5 star reviews owned by individuals who care about your holiday experience because they are not worth as much to the aggregator so they are right at the bottom of the lists. If the aggregator cared about your holiday they would be at the top and possibly over the long term this would bring him more revenue because travellers would come to know that they could find the best properties quickly. You also cannot get to actually speak to an owner of any of the properties on the several first pages because they are all on commission rather than subscription and obviously they don't want you bypassing their system and paying the owner. Long term this is very bad for the industry and in particular for guests.