The Pros and Cons of the The Booking.com Genius Programme

As of the 1st of August 2017, Booking.com revamped their genius programme. You now have to offer all “genius” bookers a 10% discount to qualify for their service.
I have found it to be a great feature on their website as you get preferential treatment in search results and email blasts to their mailing list.
However, with this new mandatory discount rule, it has made me rethink using it for The Grainary and the clients I work with.
To help you decide, I have listed all the pros and cons about the genius programme.
Reasons Hotels Join Booking Genius

1. Hotels usually resort to the Genius programme when:
- They are looking for more sales on low-demand dates.
- They consider that Booking.com has “high-quality” clients under control (frequent travellers) which they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
- They want immediacy.
- They don’t see a problem in giving an exclusive discount to these Genius clients because they are low-demand dates and “what does it matter because the hotel won’t fill up anyway.”
- They think they have the situation under control and that they will “leave Genius” when everything goes back to normal and they don’t need it.
- They follow recommendations from their Booking.com account manager and try it out.
2. Why do hotels use the Genius programme?
- Comfort
- Lack of time
- Lack of tools
- Lack of knowledge
- Get pressured into it by a Sales Rep
3. Visibility: New Sales vs. Profitability
This visibility allows you to access a larger pool of clients that you supposedly couldn’t previously access.
Our recommendation is to permanently revise the programme in all cases and, in most of them, leave it.

Why you should Leave the Booking Genius programme
1. For its high cost, no less than 25–28%.
Once you add in the commission and the additional 10% discount for the guest, you are going to be at least 25% down on your room rate before the guest walks in the door.
2. Do the new sales compensate for the ones you are missing out on?
During your high season with the applied discount, the income you miss out on is significant. These bookings would have been made anyway at a normal price, meaning that the alleged new income made during low-season is cancelled out.
3. You are building customer loyalty for Booking.com (and not for your hotel) and, on top of it all, you are paying the bill for it.
4. Selling at a discount has no merit.
Speak to any OTA, give them an exclusive 10% discount and wait for the clients to arrive. Instead look at what incentives you can offer the guest( i.e earlier check in time)
5. Exclusive discounts are something of the past…
Or perhaps not? If another OTA channel asks for an exclusive 10% discount, do you accept it?
6. Other ways of gaining visibility without having to activate Genius and losing control:
a. Move your prices more actively and aggressively, both upwards and downwards.
b. Launch commercial actions on other channels, including your direct one, and see that they cost the same as that 30%.
c. Over-commission Booking.com on these low-demand dates. For example, move to 16% commission in January will boost your visibility and save 9% in the process
7. The programme is not as clear as you would need.
From a self-interested point of view, the sale that comes from Genius clients is a new sale, when truly that is never the case.
9. It’s a rigid programme in which you cannot set the limits that you would like.
In order to be able to choose single days in the calendar (not a range of dates, which is limiting), you have to do it through your Booking.com account manager.
10. Genius openly competes with your loyal and direct clients and even with your rewards programme.

11. Your dependency on Booking.com increases.
12. The more it sells for you, the more fearful you will be to leave.
13. They chose to focus on their own rewards programme
14. With its exclusive price advantages, it eats up the rest of your distribution channels, including your direct web and phone sales.
15. If you offer wedding or group bookings, genius programme can interfere with this
Finally — Deep down you know it’s the correct decision, but you never find the time to make it.
I hope this has aided you in your forming your own opinions about the Genius programme and helped with your decision process. If you are looking to get the most out of Booking.com and make it work for you, not the other way round, I did write this, which I think will help
If you have any questions, please reach out to me
