Only one room left!
How Booking.com Creates a Sense of Urgency
Holiday: scheduled!
Flights: booked!
You are nearly there — the final step is to find that great lodging online. As in flights, accommodation reservations are increasingly done through travel aggregators. According to SimilarWeb, travel planners’ most popular choice today is Booking.com with more than 480 million monthly visits.
Online travel agency services are wonderfully convenient. They allow you to evaluate fares and features of several hotels at the same time, and read user reviews to support your conclusions. Compared to many hotel websites done with significantly smaller budgets, agency websites are easy to use, they store and manage the bookings, and sport a range of additional features. How nice.
Yet, there is something very off with these service providers. In the fall 2017, UK competition and marketing authority launched an investigation to hotel booking sites and their practices. They examine whether these service may mislead consumers to make decisions that are not their best interests.
Majority of the lodgings today are booked online by private consumers, and the market is dominated by a few huge companies. Their position combined with their ability to control information creates a challenge for the user. What information can I trust? Is the site making authentic suggestions that benefit me — or is it trying to sell as much as possible?
Under Pressure
Let’s examine the user experience of Booking.com as an example. To test it out, I searched for a hotel in Paris for an upcoming weekend in February 2018. The search led to a nice list of hotel — and a bright red text that immediately catches my attention: The first hotel listed is “booked 19 times in the last 6 hours”. Whoa, it seems I should definitely hurry!
Perhaps I should postpone my vacation — let’s examine the situation in May 2019. Again, the first result is “in high demand and booked 78 times in the last 24 hours” even if the date is over a year from now! Why did this happen?
By showing this information the service intentionally ushers a sense of urgency. The business reasoning is based on sales and behavioral economics.
When searching for hotels, the user is not merely browsing. They are highly likely to actually need an accommodation, a fundamental component for their future vacation or business trip. They will book the lodging, the only question is where. For this reason, the service strives to close the deal as soon as possible.
When the user has made a purchase decision, they are far less likely to critically re-examine their purchase, and opt for an alternative hotel through a competitor or directly from the hotel. Rather, psychological post-decision rationalization processes automatically kick in. They make the user see the decision in a more favorable light than before the decision was made.
It appears many businesses have clear understanding in user behavior which they leverage to their advantage. Yet, when they are optimizing for revenue they may fail to perceive how their aggressive sales techniques arouse stress in the user and fundamentally hurt the user experience.
The user may be manipulated into buying which, at worst, may lead to decisions they will regret. Even with the “FREE cancellation” (capital letters from Booking.com), the company may lead the user into making a fast instead of best decision. When the company prioritizes their own interests above its users they hurt their long-term reputation and invite pave the road for more ethically sound competitors.
Scarcity — and competition
Booking.com intensifies the sense of urgency through two other techniques. First, they intentionally highlight scarcity to create a sense of being under pressure. Not only do you have barely a moment to make the decision, there is a limited pool of resources!
On top of that, the site pits users against each other building a sense of competition. The site leads the user to believe there are other players in the bargain hunting game who are trying to get the best deals from under your nose at any given time.
Let’s continue with our test. Perhaps weekends are busy — let’s try to get two nights in Paris during the week over one year from now in the late spring 2019, Tuesday to Thursday. First the site presents two options and then — damn! The third option was already sold — and just a moment ago!
It is not a coincidence that the third option was sold out — it always is. The first two options are used to establish a baseline the user compares other products to. The third option then creates a sense of scarcity and competition. The message between the lines is: “perhaps you should reconsider the two options above and make a quick decision.”
Ranking the results in the order of lowest price first does not change the situation. The third room is still sold out. Yet, the site seeks to create even more stressful decision-making situation. For the first hotel, there is “only 1 room left on our site!”. And this is for a two night stay during the week in Paris over one year from now.
As I user, I begin to wonder how the results are ranked. Their order naturally has a significant impact on the lodging chosen. Yet, the agencies do not fully disclose all of the factors that affect their rankings. By default, Booking.com ranks on “relevance for two people” — it is unclear which factors affect this.
And that’s not all!
The hotel in Paris seems like a viable deal. Let’s take it one step further and select the first hotel suggested. This leads me to the hotel’s page. First, there are pictures, user reviews, and other information about the lodging. Below, there are prices and the features of the hotel, the key information.
This portion is especially coercive. It includes all of the tricks in the behavioral economics manual:
- It highlights competition with other users (“recently booked”).Yet, the site conveniently omits information when the room was actually booked and for what dates.
- It emphasizes the scarcity of the rooms (“last chance”). Again, this message just happens not to mention that there are often dozens of other available rooms in other hotels.
- Arousing the thought of winning and luck (“jackpot”). This incites thoughts and emotions related to gambling, which are especially appealing for some users.
In addition to these forces that push user to action, the site also uses means to pull the user in.
- It showcases an excessively long list of features, just look at it below if you don’t believe me. Even toilet paper and heating are mentioned. These serve to highlight the value user is getting for the very low price.
- Eliminating barriers of booking. The reservation does not require registration — and the user can also cancel it. Yet, the likelihood to cancel a made reservation is low which the economists very well know. This makes it profitable to offer this possibility.
Let’s take a closer look at the very bottom. The large text box implies an important message. Upon closer inspection it seems that this particular hotel was not recently booked. Rather, someone booked a property like this. In addition, it is said that it was “just booked” without telling when.
Overall, the site carefully creates an environment where the facts are right but the connotations work against the user — and for the benefit of the company.
Buyer beware
I am not saying that Booking.com is giving out wrong information. It merely creates an environment, where the user is as likely as possible to make a reservation. Each reservation made brings in revenue to the company and takes it away from the competitors.
As users, we should be mindful how the companies affect our decision-making. This awareness gives us the tools to critically examine the offers presented to us. Yet, we have to acknowledge that even when we are aware of these techniques we are still affected. For this reason, we have to take a proactive stance in protecting the integrity of our decision-making.
Here are some tools that you may use:
- Before booking, create a list of the things you are looking for. Write down what you expect from the lodging and its location. Evaluate your budget and how much you are willing to pay.
- Reserve enough time to search for information and evaluate the information. Check the price with competitors or directly with the lodging provider.
- You can also consider crowd-sourced alternatives such as Couchsurfing or AirBnb.
- Support only online travel agencies that promote your values.
Remember that if you are planning well ahead, you are not in a hurry when booking a hotel no matter what the agency says. You can always, stop, take a walk, think, and evaluate your options. Have you considered all options? When in doubt, talk with a friend. They at least are 100% on your side.
Have you encouraged coercive digital sales practices? I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts below!
Enjoy your travels,
