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twiss | 7 months ago

It's interesting to claim that tourism in Europe won't be "durable" at a moment when tourism in the US is sharply declining..

Anyway, Booking.com is a European company and has many more customers than AirBnB.

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pclowes|7 months ago

I don't understand what you are trying to claim. 1. Booking.com is owned by Booking Holdings which is an American parent company. 2. US GDP growth has been massively outperforming the EU since 2008.

I am saying tourism is not something governments should want to heavily optimize an economy for. No amount of taking money from people on vacation will translate into building a more competitive or innovative economy.

twiss|7 months ago

Apparently Priceline.com Inc. took over Booking.com (founded in the Netherlands) for € 110 million, and then changed its name to Booking Holdings to reflect the fact that Booking.com was much bigger than Priceline.com. Indeed a great example of "American innovation" :)

legitster|7 months ago

Apples and Oranges. Booking.com is an aggregator.

Also, Booking.com is unbelievably exploitative and rife with dark patterns.

twiss|7 months ago

How so? At least Booking.com shows me the total price for an accommodation up front, without any additional fees or surprises coming up later in the booking process.

The same cannot be said for AirBnB: if I go to the home page right now it lists a bunch of bookings for e.g. "€ 80 for 2 nights", while when I click through the total price is €160. So apparently what they meant is "€80 per night". I'd call that much more of a dark pattern than anything I've seen Booking do.

TremendousJudge|7 months ago

> Also, Booking.com is unbelievably exploitative and rife with dark patterns.

So it seems that Europeans have no issue doing the same thing as American tech companies?

teekert|7 months ago

But great for its _users_, so just like the US companies then.