The Price Effects of Prohibiting Price Parity Clauses: Evidence from International Hotel Groups

Dominant platforms like Booking.com and Amazon often impose Price Parity Clauses to prevent lower prices on alternative sales channels. We provide quasi-experimental evidence on the removal of these price restrictions in France in 2015 for three major international hotel groups. Our analysis reveals limited and non-significant price effects for rooms sold through consumer-visible channels, such as hotels' websites or online travel agencies. However, we document a significant price reduction on sales channels not visible to consumers, such as direct offline bookings. Additionally, we identify a significant shift in sales share from online travel agencies to the hotels' direct offline channels.