Traveling amounts to a major proportion of the worldโs economy. With the rise in technology, we can now book all the aspects of our travel plan online, leading to a boost to the travel industry.
Whether it is the airlineโs tickets or hotel booking or merely deciding which travel destination to go for, several travel sites will do it for you, opening your options to a whole new world.
Key Takeaways
- Priceline allows users to bid on hotel rooms, while Booking.com offers fixed prices.
- Priceline offers more discounts than Booking.com.
- Booking.com has a larger selection of accommodations than Priceline.
Priceline vs Booking.com
Priceline is an online travel agency that offers customers the ability to book travel arrangements such as flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages. Booking offers similar travel services to Priceline, including the ability to book flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages.
Founded in 1997, Priceline is an online travel company whose main focus is to be the best travel dealmakers in the world while giving the best customer experience. Listings on its site include hotels, airlines, and similar travel-related options.
It is fully owned by Booking Holdings Ltd., which also owns Booking.com and several other locales. The companyโs spokespeople include renowned actors like William Shatner.
Booking.com is another online travel agency owned by Booking Holdings Ltd and established in 1996. It is a well-established company with more than 5.8 million travel options ranging from hotels to treehouses and igloos in 200 countries.
Its site is available in 43 dialects. Among the various travel sites owned by Booking Holdings, Booking.com is the most profitable one.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | Priceline | Booking.com |
|---|---|---|
| Working | In this, the buyers make an offer for the particular listing and Priceline finds sellers willing to offer services at that price | It is a traditional online travel agency having a global presence |
| Founded in | 1997 | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Norwalk, Connecticut, United States | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Website | Less easy to browse | Easier to browse with the variety of filters |
| Flight booking | Less convenient | More convenient compared to Priceline |
| Vision | To allow travelers to book a trip at the cheapest price possible | To make the nitty-gritty of travel easier for people |
What is Priceline?
Priceline is an online travel shopping site that was established with a unique idea. At the time it was found that aircraft flew at 66% capacity and many lodgings went unused day after day.
Pricelineโs founders thought that they could harness the power of the internet to fill all those unused planes and lodgings.
It became known with its โName Your Own Priceโ strategy using which buyers could state the price they would be willing to pay for a particular price while Priceline found the exact seller willing to offer its services at that price.
Using this strategy, sellers could fill in their opaque inventory while simultaneously satisfying the need of the buyers without burning a hole in their pocket.
At present, Priceline has more than 2 million alternative accommodations on its site including yurts and boats.
The site offers new ways for travelers to make their stay budget-friendly and hassle-free by bundling all payments in one transaction letting go of the hidden fees. This helps the buyers in knowing exactly what they are paying for.
Priceline knows how to leverage technology in its favor to attract the maximum number of consumers.
This has been evident in the attractive travel options available on its site customized to the customersโ preferences acting as a major contributor to its success.
What is Booking.com?
From being a small dutch startup in 1996, Booking.com has successfully grown to one of the leaders in digital travel companies. It aims at making travel seamless.
By using technology, Booking.com effectively connects travelers with the travel options of their choice. On Booking.com, accommodation owners list information about their property, that gets to the siteโs catalog of rooms available.
The company makes a commission on all bookings made through the website. A plethora of travel reservations can be booked through the site comprising:
- Restaurants
- Hotel accommodations
- Business apartments
- Trains, buses, rental cars, airport taxis, and even flights
When it comes to booking flights, Booking.com does a splendid task by allowing us to compare various airline tickets based on time, price, and carrier. The best part about booking flights through it is its trend window.
This window forecasts when fare prices are expected to go down or increase using their algorithm. In addition to this, Booking.com can be used to find accommodations for business travel which helps it to stand out from other online travel agencies.
Recently, the company has been shifting its focus to the short-term rental market increasing filters and improving property management to make the process of finding short-term rentals even easier.
Main Differences Between Priceline and Booking.com
- Priceline is an online travel shopping site in which the buyers can make an offer for a listing they are interested in and the site can find the seller willing to offer the price. On the other hand, Booking.com is a traditional online travel agency having a global presence.
- Pricelineโs headquarter is in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States while Booking.comโs headquarter is in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- In terms of flight booking, Priceline is less convenient than Booking.com. While using Booking.com, one can make use of their trend window to save money on flight tickets.
- While using Priceline, users are not guided to the airline website to complete the process whereas, in Booking.com, users are directed to the concerned website.
- Priceline is based on the vision to make travel cheaper while Booking.com focuses on making it easier.
- https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TR-12-2017-0201/full/html
- https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/inte.1090.0447
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Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.
