Glossary · Travel distribution
Rate shopping
Rate shopping is a hotel regularly collecting the public room rates of a chosen set of competitors — for the same dates, room type and conditions — to inform its own pricing; the tools that automate it are called rate shoppers.
Reviewed 30 Oct 2026
What a rate shop records
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Property and channel | The same hotel can differ between its own site and each OTA |
| Check-in date and length of stay | One-night and three-night stays are priced differently |
| Occupancy and room type | Two adults in a standard double is not a family room |
| Board and cancellation terms | Breakfast and free cancellation change the product |
| Point of sale and currency | Rates differ by market and by conversion |
| Taxes and fees shown or not | Some markets show totals, others nightly rates before tax |
| Timestamp | Rates move through the day |
Comparing like with like
A rate shop is only as good as its matching. The UK Competition and Markets Authority's 2019 commitments with hotel booking sites singled out misleading comparisons — a weekend rate set against a weekday rate, a luxury suite against a standard room — and required compulsory charges such as taxes and resort fees in the headline price. The same discipline applies inside a rate shop: compare the same product, with mandatory fees included, from the same point of sale. Fee-specific collection is covered under hotel resort fees.
Rate shopping vs parity monitoring
| Rate shopping | Parity monitoring | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose rates | Competitors' | Your own, across channels |
| Question | Where is the market? | Is my rate the same everywhere? |
| Feeds | Pricing decisions, the RMS | Distribution and contract follow-up |
The parity side is under rate parity.
Running a rate shop
Shop a fixed competitive set over a rolling window of arrival dates, more often for near dates than far ones, and keep every observation as a time series. The collection setup is on hotel rate shopping and the step-by-step build in how to scrape hotel prices; the result usually feeds a revenue management system.
FAQ
Questions
Something not covered? Write to contact@arcproxies.io.
How often should a hotel shop rates?
Often enough to see the moves that matter: daily for the coming weeks is common, with near arrival dates or event periods checked several times a day and dates months out less often.
What is a competitive set?
The handful of hotels a property considers its direct competitors, by location, category and guest type. A rate shop tracks this set consistently so changes over time are comparable.
Which channels should a rate shop cover?
The hotel websites and the OTAs and metasearch listings where guests actually compare prices in your market, each collected logged-out from the market you sell into.
Is collecting competitors' public rates allowed?
Collecting publicly displayed, logged-out prices at a modest rate is standard practice in the industry. Respect robots.txt and site terms, and take legal advice where a specific site or use is in question.
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