Booking.com abruptly terminated its affiliate partnership with travel bloggers, content creators and other content providers. The company gave only 30 days notice and offered no explanation.
The move has sparked confusion and frustration among affiliates – they face lost income and work to update or remove affiliate links.
Booking.com did not disclose how many affiliates it had dropped. Travel Massive’s travel networking platform, however, dubbed the changes “Bookinggeddon”, and estimated the loss of “thousands.”
Booking.com claims to have more than 17,500 affiliated partners. It is believed that the reductions are aimed at small partners with little scale.
What are affiliate partnerships?
Booking.com’s affiliate program can be seen as a marketing tool for the company. It’s an opportunity to promote the brand and get new bookings.
Booking.com offers affiliate partnerships to travel blogs and small businesses. They could add Booking.com buttons and banners on their websites to be able sell hotels and travel products through Booking.com.
Booking.com would pay affiliates a commission of between 25 and 40 percent.
