July 25 – FIFA’s last minute sponsorship with Booking.com has sparked anger amongst small hotels and accommodation hosts, thousands of whom had gone unpaid worldwide for more than six weeks when the sponsorship deal was announced.
While it now appears that accommodation owners and small hotels are being paid by Booking.com (the large chains were unaffected), the delays in payment have left owners furious and questioning if Booking.com was using their cash to pay for the major sponsorship with FIFA.
They are also questioning whether FIFA did any due diligence into Booking.com and its business practices before agreeing the sponsorship.
Booking.com collects money from guests when they book an accommodation, and then, after deducting an admin fee, they send the money to the host. Hosts generally receive their money about two weeks after guests have completed their stay, even though they often collected the buyer’s cash months in advance.
Hosts are reporting that they haven’t been paid since early June, plunging thousands of them into financial hardship, unable to pay staff and suppliers. Payments started to filter through to owners towards the end of July.
By that time the Women’s World Cup was in full swing and Booking.com would have taken accommodation fees in Australia and New Zealand off the back of the FIFA sponsorship.
Booking.com blamed “maintenance on our financial system” for withholding money. But that hasn’t stopped them agreeing a sponsorship with FIFA and the biggest women’s sports event the world has ever seen. That has infuriated hosts who say that the unpaid workers hit hardest are generally females in the lowest paid jobs in the accommodation business.
In late June Booking put a note out on its hosts app to those who are paid weekly (many thousands globally) that their weekly payments would be delayed for a month due to financial system maintenance.
Many hosts did not see this and were surprised when money did not come in. Smaller hosts globally have shared that they are generally up to about $10,000 out of pocket and unable pay cleaners, staff , electricity, etc.
Booking.com are holding on to all these funds while small hosts suffer. Estimates put the unpaid host payments at more than $20 million.
Host reports that Booking.com support lines are not helpful and hard to get hold of. One host after commenting on Rick Certano, Booking.com’s Vice President LinkedIn page received a generic response telling her to contact her account manager.
FIFA were contacted for comment on the practices of their sponsor but have not responded.
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