A warning from Dick Smith about booking online accommodation with the Big cartels
- The Beagle
- Sep 9, 2018
- 2 min read
With Eurobodalla being a tourism destination and one of our primary industries being tourism the impact of international on-line booking agencies on our local economy has long been a sore point with our accommodation providers. Australian Entrepreneur Dick Smith has taken to social media and launched a sensational attack on American multinational accommodation booking companies. He says are they’re “leeching” millions from family-owned businesses on our shores. In a video posted to Facebook, the businessman is urging Aussies to boycott online accommodation websites such as Booking.com, Trivago and Wotif. In the video Dick says when Aussies book using the sites, “20 to to 30 per cent is sent to two huge American multinationals” controlled by wealthy US businessmen “It’s a giant con, it’s sucking like leeches hundreds of millions of dollars out of Australian family businesses and sending it to these two sites,” Dick reveals that motels across regional Australia can’t afford not to use the sites because so many people access them. “I asked the motels, ‘Why would you want to be paying these 20% of your profit?’ “And they said, ‘Dick, most Australians think it’s cheaper to go through one of these sites and so now 50 per cent do’. “‘So that means if we don’t sign up to one of these sites, we’ll lose 50 per cent of our business and we’ll go broke’.” "It's almost impossible to find a family owned motel website on the internet because they are three or four pages down below the booking site listings". "The big company have a deal with google to get their listings on the top" Dick also claims in his video that the accommodation booking sites also aren’t telling the whole truth on their platforms. “The other thing you’ll get… is you go on to one of these sites and it says ‘last room’ at $140 and you think, ‘I’ve got to get on to that’. “But I’ve rung the motels and there’s three or four rooms available!” Dick is urging members of the public to avoid the major accommodation booking companies and go straight to websites of local businesses.
Video: DICK SMITH HAS NEVER BEEN SO ANGRY!! In the following video he exposes foreign booking sites for extorting millions from Australian small businesses
