ILoveGay.NET

By Alfred Verhoeven

Recently I wrote about how hotel stays account for the largest part of a travel budget, and LGBT people travel like a charm: more often, more luxuriously, longer, out of season. But it’s not all roses and sunshine if we are to believe Booking.com.

Booking.com (est. 1996) is an international website where you can book accommodations. The cradle was in the Netherlands, but now the company is American and the site is available in 43 languages. They offer more than 1 million locations. In July 2005, the company was acquired by Priceline Group for $133 million. The integration of Booking.com successfully helped the parent company improve its financial position from a $19 million loss in 2002 to a $1.1 billion profit in 2011. The acquisition was hailed by some media outlets as “the best acquisition in Internet history.” .’

Controversial

The company is not without controversy: reprimanded by the Advertising Code Committee, the requirement towards providers (until 2015) that they were not allowed to offer rooms anywhere else at a lower rate than on their website, poor working conditions. During the corona pandemic in 2020, the company was hit hard, but was mainly criticized for relying on state support to continue paying salaries, while in the previous years they had made billions of euros in profits and still paid 28 million euros in bonuses to the top managers. As a result of the pandemic, they laid off 4,000 employees. Later they announced that they would repay the government’s wage support.

Time to polish up the image. This week, a report from Booking.com was published under embargo (!) about the problems faced by LGBT travelers. Well Booking, you could have omitted that report unmissed, because the tear-jerking facts you observe are either completely irrelevant or have been known for 50 years. But yes, a report (under embargo) during the Pride Month does generate attention and shows that the company is very committed to this traveler group. Or…

Results

Let me quote a few of the striking results from the “LGBTQ+ survey” (the term they consistently use, I use LGBT+ from here on):

1. The study, ‘carried out among LGBT+ travelers in 25 countries worldwide, shows that negative experiences are most common when Dutch travelers are in public areas (23%).’ Apart from that crooked sentence (were those global respondents really talking about Dutch travelers?), to be honest, 23% doesn’t seem too bad to me. And what happened in non-public spaces?
2. ‘Almost half (46%) of Dutch LGBT+ travelers see traveling as a time to relax and unwind mentally.’ I wonder what the other 54% want: hiking, white-water rafting, running a marathon, arguing, looking for trouble? And how is that different with non-LGBT folk?
3. ‘61% say being a member of the LGBT+ community influences the decisions they make when planning a trip, the activities they do (58%) and perhaps most importantly; the wish list of destinations (50%).’ I can imagine that very well, because choosing Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or Egypt as a destination does not seem very comfortable, but it is adventurous. However, what does Booking.com have to do with that? They don’t offer tours or travel destinations, do they? But what about gay-friendly hotels in those countries?
4. ‘65% of those surveyed say they should consider their safety and well-being when travelling.’ This is compared to the x% of the average straight, elderly, teenager or female traveler? I really don’t recognize the relevance of this.

Fortunately, there are also ‘Promising signs of progress and positivity’ and of the three examples mentioned this one seems to me the most promising: 19% received tips/information about the area during their stay. The investigation goes deep!

A promo photo that was used in New Zealand, among other places.

NB: I do not simply express my ‘doubts’ about the results of this research: I myself conducted a survey among more than 3,000 consumers and the results were very different. It’s also about the questions you ask. I also briefly presented the questions and answers from the Booking survey to a few fellow experts and while some trends were recognized, the general opinion was that several figures seemed very high, and minor inconveniences were over-estimated. But above all: what does Booking want to (prove) with this?

Choice stress

After the dramas and positive progress, it is repeated a few times just to make sure that LGBT travelers prefer to go to a destination where the LGBT+ community and its history receive the attention they deserve, and just over half do research into accommodations in advance, organizations and experiences to see what role they play in supporting the community. In addition, 60% are more likely to book with organizations that emerge positively from their research. Organizations? Like Booking? Or rather a tour operator or travel organization? We will never know.

In 2020, Booking apparently picked up the first signals about possible problems that the rainbowers encountered with accommodations – in a year when there was hardly any travel? Previously, I wrote about Airbnb, a much younger company than Booking, which was already busy showing their inclusiveness in 2016 and has done so consistently, exuberantly, original and colorful. I gave them an 8 for all these expressions and genuine involvement, which would have been even higher if they had started a little earlier.

Proud Hospitality

But Booking saw the light even much later, which in 2021 – that is, last year, in the middle of the crisis that hit them so hard – led to the “Proud Hospitality” program, which was still described in a neutral friendly manner in the Dutch marketing press. The statistics mentioned came from Booking’s 2021 survey, and they hardly differ from the figures we see in the new report. What does that add – other than a reason for a press release?

The aforementioned list of about five inconveniences from 2021 has been a problem for only 16-20% of the respondents. Annoying, but not shocking: I think that uncle Jack and aunt Mary (as a symbol for the straight travel segment) also regularly have unpleasant experiences. It’s not always about pretending to be different than you are, but I can imagine that two good mates should also make it clear that they are that, and don’t want a double bed, and that tattoo Bob puts on a long-sleeved shirt when he’s going to eat in a chic place, and the middle-aged gentleman with his younger second wife probably has something to explain too. A disturbing trend: last year 26% received tips/information about the area during their stay, and that is now only 19%.

After those 20% inconveniences, it is added ‘60% of LGBT travelers felt welcome most of the time during their stay.’ Not bad right? OK, that could have been 80% or 90%, and that’s where Booking could play a role.

Travel Proud

Booking’s Proud Hospitality program includes the Travel Proud badge for participating accommodations. They can earn this in the following way: together with the respectable HospitableMe (“a global leader in inclusive hospitality”) they organize a free online workshop of no less than 75 minutes. At least one employee must attend this workshop. Once you’ve completed the training, they’ll ask you to make a statement to commit to putting what you’ve learned into practice. This includes identifying ways to make the accommodation where you work more inclusive. After that you will get access to their Travel Proud Customer Toolkit.

This means that if, for example, a hotel in Las Vegas with 4,000 employees has their intern attend the workshop, the hotel can be certified. There are now more than 10,000 Proud Certified properties in 95 countries, including 450 in the Netherlands.

Cities with multiple certified accommodations are also shown on a special Travel Proud page: do a few of those badges suddenly make an entire city gay-friendly? I think Booking is seeing it all a bit too optimistically. They also claim to speak on behalf of the ‘travel industry’, an industry that is at least 30 years ahead of what they are now trying to achieve: read my blogs Travel and Hospitality and Fly fly away.

TAG, since 1998

Now such a system of rainbow stamps of approval for an accommodation is well intended, but not original. Back in 1998, TAG, the Travel Advocacy Group, was founded by Community Marketing & Insights, which has proudly provided research and training to the travel industry since 1992. TAG Approved® is a collection of LGBT+ welcoming accommodations that have gone through a qualification process based on their employment policies, services and community support. They are members of The International LGBTQ+ Travel Association (IGLTA),

There are countless (gay) websites that give their approval (or disapproval) for accommodations. Industry partner Expedia.com, the world’s largest online travel agency, opened an LGBT travel site in 2010, also in collaboration with the IGLTA. Orbitz and Travelocity also did it years ago. World Rainbow Hotels lists them, including news, tips and events. Even CNN paid attention to this.

Meanwhile, Booking is not even a member of the IGLTA yet, and that should be the first thing they should do to show their good intentions. And then they can immediately learn from TAG how to do it.

Role model? Well no

Well, all that could be commendable in principle: after all, Booking is a company of which the European Union warned in 2015 that they were one of many internet companies that may have achieved market dominance beyond “the point of no return”. So market leader, therefore role model? But it’s all just not right. They are too late, they are one-sided, they overestimate the role of their nicely conceived model, the problems identified are sometimes far-fetched, as are the so-called positive developments.

Diversity should also be evident in your communications. Since the 26 years of their existence, I have been able to locate one set of videos, all released at once in 2021, when the company was suffering so much from the crisis, and thus launched a good news offensive. Within “Travel Proud” a few videos were made – I counted 10 – in which the good intentions were explained, experts spoke, hotel managers praised the initiative. But in which an ‘expert’ also explains that if she comes to a hotel counter with a male partner, it is assumed that they are a couple, and the receptionist mainly addresses the man. Sad, but that’s really not what this is about.

Own diversity

What has Booking.com done to become more inclusive itself? And now I quote from their website: ‘Proud Hospitality and Proud Certified are just part of what we’re doing to become more inclusive. The Book Proud portion of the Travel Proud program also means we’re reviewing our language on Booking.com to make sure it’s inclusive, not just for LGBT+ travelers, but everyone. Inclusiveness is also in the DNA of our own company. We believe that our teams work best when they can be themselves. We are proud to be in first place on the Financial Times list of Diversity Leaders 2020 [note: this claim is a bit sad, because in 2022 they have dropped to 35th place, but OK, not bad still, but then it goes for all kinds of diversity]. And for more than five years, our B.Proud employee group has supported LGBT+ employees and allies, making the culture at Booking.com even more diverse and inclusive.”

During the 25th edition of Pride Amsterdam, which was to take place in 2020, Booking was the main sponsor of the festival. A nice signal, but also opportunistic: Airbnb did the same, because these are ideal opportunities for such an organization that offers accommodations: the rates for these sometimes go up by 100% during these times. They could also have supported a good cause or financed a boat (as Philips would do that year).

There is a section on the website for their perhaps well-intentioned support to the community (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt), but that section is NOT visible on the homepage. You can probably only get there through a deep link. Even through their ‘Travel Communities’ section, ‘Pride’ results in ‘Sorry, we couldn’t find a community. Please try another search.’

Articles

Then there is an ‘Articles’ section, which contains a few relevant topics (Amsterdam Pride, the Guide) and here the search term Pride does give a few relevant results: Traveling Europe with Conchita Wurst, 5 of the top global LGBT+ destinations, but strangely enough also On the lookout for Poland’s majestic wildlife and 6 child-friendly ski resorts parents will love too. It just depends on what you mean by Pride.

And if you go back to the main Booking.com/articles page, you won’t see anything relevant at all. In fact, enter Pride as your search term and you’ll get stories about ‘Great Eats from Windy City‘, ‘Street Art’, ‘Pizza around the USA‘ and the ‘Top 7 brunch spots in LA’. Nothing about Pride, nothing about LGBT, nothing about Travel Proud. Are they ashamed of this diversity? Should it be tucked away for the regular visitor?

But then they repeatedly say: ‘We filter accommodations, not people.’

Finally, a quote from Arjan Dijk, CMO and Senior VP: ‘At Booking.com we believe that everyone should be able to experience the world as themselves. From relaxing to experiencing different cultures, LGBTQ+ travelers no matter where they come from, who they love or how they identify themselves, want the same as everyone else when it comes to travel. As a gay traveler I have faced barriers and discrimination during my travels, but over the years I have also seen progressive changes. By leading the way towards a more inclusive industry, we hope to contribute to an overall change that will raise the standard of travel for everyone.”

That ‘lead’ is, however, no more than a small afterburner, a case of ‘too little, too late.’ The travel industry is one of the most inclusive in the world: from colleagues Orbitz and Expedia to Travelocity, from KLM to Hilton, from Uber to Airbnb, from Carnival cruises to Amtrak and many hundreds of holiday destinations (Destination Marketing Organizations) – they have been doing this successfully for decades.

Conclusion

Booking.com misses the mark with “revealing” studies that have been outdated for years, with solutions they can’t offer, with claims they can’t live up to – and with news that isn’t news. It took no less than 25 years before they made this subject a topic for discussion. Relevant content on the website is hidden. Diversity is hard to find in their communications. They don’t score more than a 3.

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow. He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.