Glossary · Travel distribution
OTA (online travel agency)
An OTA (online travel agency) is a website or app that sells travel from many suppliers — hotel rooms, flights, car hire, packages — and completes the booking itself, either as an agent passing the reservation to the supplier or as a merchant reselling inventory at a price it sets.
Reviewed 30 Oct 2026
Agency model vs merchant model
| Agency model | Merchant model | |
|---|---|---|
| Who charges the traveller | Usually the supplier, often at the stay | The OTA, at booking |
| Who sets the selling price | The supplier | The OTA, from a net rate |
| How the OTA earns | Commission from the supplier | Margin between net rate and selling price |
Large OTAs run both models side by side, which is one reason the same room can appear at two prices on one site.
How regulators have dealt with OTAs
In February 2019 the UK Competition and Markets Authority secured commitments from six hotel booking sites: to say when commission affects search rankings, to include compulsory charges such as taxes and resort fees in the headline price, and to stop misleading claims about availability and popularity. The changes were due by 1 September 2019, and the CMA made no finding that the law had been broken.
In the EU the live issue has been contractual: see rate parity for parity clauses and the Digital Markets Act.
Why OTA prices are worth monitoring
For a hotel, the OTA price is the one most travellers compare against; for a competitor, it is the market rate. Monitoring means logged-out searches per point of sale, with dates and occupancy held constant. Member-only rates behind a login are out of scope. The workflows are on hotel rate shopping and car rental prices; ground rules are in collecting travel data responsibly.
FAQ
Questions
Something not covered? Write to contact@arcproxies.io.
What is the difference between an OTA and a metasearch site?
An OTA sells: it takes the booking and payment and handles changes. A metasearch site only compares prices from many sellers, including OTAs, and sends the traveller to one of them to book.
Do OTAs set hotel prices?
Under the agency model the hotel sets the price and the OTA earns commission. Under the merchant model the OTA buys at a net rate and sets the selling price itself, within whatever its contract with the hotel allows.
Why is a hotel sometimes cheaper on an OTA than direct?
The OTA may be funding a discount from its own commission, selling a merchant or wholesale rate, or showing a rate with different conditions. Comparing like for like — same room, board, cancellation terms and taxes — resolves many apparent gaps.
Can OTA prices be collected responsibly?
Yes, by collecting only public, logged-out search results, at a modest request rate, respecting robots.txt and the site's terms, and never automating anything behind a login or a challenge page.
Sources & review
Last reviewed by the ARC Proxies team. Prices are read from the live catalog at build time.
- [1]Competition and Markets Authority: Hotel booking sites to make major changes after CMA probe
In practice